A bungling cleaner destroyed a work of art on display in a museum.
The tourist board was forced to apologise to the artist after his work was accidentally altered.
The artwork featured a dust-covered mirror on a plain wooden board with mesh fabric covering the sides.
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The smudged reflection in the mirror was the main feature of the piece, symbolising the imagery and cultural consciousness of the middle class.
But a museum worker mistakenly believed the smeared mirror was simply dust while patrolling the exhibition, and decided to give it a wipe down with tissue paper.
The mirror surface was mostly cleaned when colleagues noticed and tried to intervene.
The art exhibition ‘We Are Me’ is currently on display at the Keelung Museum of Art, near Taipei, in Taiwan, as reported by What’s The Jam.
The display includes artwork created from building materials and household objects to explore themes of transformation in the modern age.
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Organisers invite art lovers to “reflect on the dialectical relationship between subjectivity and identity amid the torrents of our image-sharing era”.
The damaged piece was called Inverted Syntax – 16.
It was by local artist Chen Sung-chih.
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They were unable to restore the artwork to its original state.
Keelung’s Culture and Tourism Bureau immediately contacted the artist to offer their apologies and organise emergency discussions on the next steps.
Bureau officials are currently working closely with Chen and are holding talks with their insurance company regarding a possible compensation payout.
According to lawyer Tsai Chia-hao, insurance cover will probably not apply to cleaning dust from an exhibit, but would depend on the specific policy taken out.
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