An art installation of empty champagne bottles, cigarette butts and spent party poppers reopened in Italy on Tuesday, three days after cleaning staff mistook it for rubbish and binned it.
"Where shall we go dancing tonight?" was intended to invoke the consumerism, financial speculation, mass media and parties of the 1980s, but fell foul of unwary cleaners at the weekend.
After realizing the mistake, staff at the Museion Bozen-Bolzano in the northern Alto Adige region hastily salvaged the materials from rubbish sacks and recreated the art work.
Museum director Letizia Ragaglia suggested the incident had served to get people talking about modern art.
"It has sparked a great debate ... It all goes to show how contemporary art is capable of arousing great interest, or even annoying people. We believe it is essential to keep this dialogue open," she said in a statement.
Although the creators of the installation, Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari were not amused, the Museion Bozen-Bolzano,as a good sport, posted pictures of the 'immaculate empty floor' after the incident while noting that there were "plenty of precedents", mentioning famous accidents to art works by conceptual artists.
In 1914, Marcel Duchamp's Bottle Rack was also mistaken for garbage and thrown away, whereas in the 1980's Joseph Beuys' dirty bathtub installation was scrubbed sparkling clean by ameticlous employee.
The show will be open to the public until Nov. 22.
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