Trash or treasure?

Discerning the difference between modern art and rubbish doesn’t always come easy. Maybe that’s why, when an elevator mechanic doing maintenance at the LAM art museum in Lisse, Netherlands, encountered two spent beer cans on top of the clear ceiling of the elevator car, he assumed they were litter and threw them out. But rather than garbage, the cans were actually a 1988 piece constructed by French artist Alexandre Lavet, who hand-painted the beer cans and called his work All the Good Times We Spent Together. According to an Oct. 1 museum statement, workers were able to fish the art out of the trash, clean the cans up, and then put them back on display atop the elevator.