“The employee considers himself as an artist and most likely saw his role in the museum’s installation team as a day-job,” a museum spokesperson said
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The Pinakothek Museum of Modern Art
An art museum employee was fired after trying to show off one of his own works of art.
A 51-year-old employee of Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany — who had not been identified by the museum or police — installed his own self-made painting in the museum’s modern art floor, according to The New York Times, the Telegraph and the BBC.
The museum told the Times that the technician had been working on a new exhibit when he detoured to the art gallery area to put up his painting. Museum spokesperson, Tine Nehler told the outlet that the man went “unnoticed” in the gallery because he had been “carrying tools.”
To install the art, which measured 24 inches x 47 inches, he drilled two holes along a wall, according to the Telegraph and Times. The museum did not say what his art depicted. However, speaking to The Guardian, a spokesperson remarked, “All I can say is that we did not receive any positive feedback on the addition from visitors to the gallery.”
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Police sources told the Telegraph and the BBC that the worker installed the painting hoping it would lead to an “artistic breakthrough.”
“The employee considers himself as an artist and most likely saw his role in the museum’s installation team as a day-job to support his true calling,” a museum spokesperson said in a statement to The Guardian.
The addition to the gallery — which also featured some of the world’s top artists including Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, per the Telegraph — came to the museum’s attention shortly before it opened for the day, although it remained up on the wall until closing, according to The Guardian.
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The museum reported the incident to the police and Nehler said the art was returned to the worker, who has been banned from returning to the museum.
Nehler told the Times that the reasoning behind the ban was simple: “You can’t really have a person like that guarding the high-security wing.”
The Pinakothek der Moderne did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on the incident.
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A similar incident happened a few weeks ago at the Bundeskunsthalle museum, when a student smuggled her own painting inside and put it up in one of its exhibitions.
The museum ended up posting a picture of the art on its social media in order to identify the artist and then her painting was eventually auctioned off by the gallery. The proceeds from the sale of her portrait titled “Georgia” were given to an art charity called ArtAsyl in Cologne, BBC reported.
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