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Italian cleaners bin ‘rubbish’ modern art

Cleaning staff at the Museion modern art gallery in Bolzano have landed themselves in hot water after mistakenly sweeping up a modern art exhibit they thought was the remnants of the previous night's party.

Published: 26 October 2015 09:49 CET
Italian cleaners bin 'rubbish' modern art
Cleaners at the Museion modern art gallery in Bolzano accidently cleaned away an installation thinking it was rubbish. Photo: Luke Stearns/Flickr

On Friday night, there was a gathering at the gallery and on Saturday morning the cleaning team got to work.

On arrival, they found empty bottles strewn across the floor, cigarette buts, confetti and even shoes and clothes. It looked like it had been quite a night, but the cleaning staff were unfazed and set about restoring order.

However, these were not the remnants of the previous night's party but an art exhibition called 'We were going to dance tonight' by Milanese artists Goldschmied & Chiari.

The artistic installment was aimed at satirizing the lavish parties and excesses of the Italian political classes during the 1980s. Yet, clearly it was a case of art imitating life a bit too convincingly.

“Of course we warn staff not to clean away art,” gallery curator Letizia Ragaglia told Alto Adige. “ We told them just to clean the foyer because that's where the event on Friday night had been. Evidently, they mistook the installation for the foyer…”

Fortunately, all was not lost. After organizing the 'rubbish' art into separate bin bags for glass and plastic, the cleaners realized their error before they threw out the artworks for good.

“We will try to put it back as it was, using photos to help us,” Ragaglia said.

This is by far not the first time a modern art installation has been mistaken for rubbish.

Last year, a cleaner at an art gallery in Bari threw away a piece containing old biscuit crumbs that was worth €10,000.

It's not just an Italian problem either. A Damien Hirst collection of beer bottles, coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays was thrown out of an exhibition in London in 2001, while in 2004 a bag of paper and cardboard by German artist Gustav Metzger was cleared away at the Tate Britain. 

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ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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