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Indeed, there are several examples of museum janitors from present day removing a portion of (or the whole) art thought to be trash. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3604278.stm http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/11/swept-away.php

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And funnily enough, the reverse scenario played out at least once also. In 2009 in New Zealand a very controversial 1st prize of $15,000 was awarded to artist Dane Mitchell in the Waikato National Contemporary Art competition.

Dane did not even come over to NZ from his residence in Berlin, or send any artwork to the competition. He simply phoned in instructions to the janitor to wait until all the other exhibits had been prepared and their packing and scraps had been cleaned up, and then told the janitor to empty the contents of the rubbish bin and enter it as his sculpture :-)

I do hope he split it with the janitor.

The latter is funny to me, because claiming the removal of paint makes a work "irreparably damaged" just sounds like insurance fraud to me.

The piece could, in theory, be restored to its previous form. But the question comes down to: is the art the result or the process that creates it? If it's the latter, then it can never be properly restored.

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