Employee Secretly Hangs His Own Art in German Museum, Spurring a Police Investigation

Visitors to Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne come for modernist treasures by Pablo Picasso, Franz Marc, Oskar Schlemmer, and the like. But this month, some visitors got to see something else they didn’t expect: the work of a museum employee, apparently hung without permission on the walls alongside masterpieces of the 20th century.

The German outlet Süddeutsche Zeitung reported news of the guerrilla presentation on Monday, noting that the police are now investigating in the hope of getting to the bottom of things. Per the police, the artist was a 51-year-old working in the technical services department; he’d allegedly hoped that showing his work in the museum would lead to future opportunities.

Details of his stunt remain unclear. Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that not even the museum itself is sure how long the work remained on the wall. “The supervisors notice something like this immediately,” a museum spokesperson told the publication.

The employee being investigated is not likely to face any major charges. The only criminal offense he could face is a minor infraction for drilling two holes into a wall that contained nothing on it before the artwork was mounted to it.

Still, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung, the worker is facing a change in his employment status: he was let go by the Pinakothek der Moderne and has been banned from reentering it.