A work of art consisting of two empty beer cans was displayed at a museum. Quick quiz: What happened next?
No prize at all if you guessed the obvious. It got thrown out by accident.
The artwork, entitled “All the Good Times We Spent Together,” was created in 1988 by Alexandre Lavet, who has described his style as “mixing minimalism, contextual and conceptual art legacies.” It was displayed at Lam, a museum dedicated to food and eating in Lisse, Netherlands, a town roughly 25 miles southwest of Amsterdam.
The artwork was not merely two used cans, as the museum took pains to point out on its webpage.
“If you look closely, you will discover that the dented and empty cans are hand-painted,” the museum said in describing the work. “Every detail has been painted onto the cans with precision using acrylic paint.”
It added, rather plaintively, “Lavet’s piece required a lot of time and effort to create.”
The confusion over the artwork was compounded by its placement.
“Our art encourages visitors to see everyday objects in a new light,” the museum director, Sietske van Zanten, says on the museum’s website. “By displaying artworks in unexpected places, we amplify this experience and keep visitors on their toes.”
The cans were displayed on top of a glass elevator, designed to look “as if they had been left behind during construction.”
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