The artwork, titled ‘All The Good Times We Spent Together’, was created by French artist Alexandre Lavet.
It features two “meticulously hand-painted" beer cans, and while they appear discarded and dented, the museum says it “required a lot of time and effort to create” the piece.
The artwork was on display in a glass lift of the LAM when a museum technician caught sight of the cans and assumed they’d been left there by visitors, disposing of them in the trash.
Froukje Budding, a spokesperson for the LAM museum in Lisse, western Netherlands, told AFP that artworks are often left in unusual places, hence the display in a lift.
“We try to surprise the visitor all the time,” she said.
When curator Elisah van den Bergh noticed the artwork was missing, a search was conducted, and the cans were recovered from a bin bag just in the nick of time as they were about to be thrown out.
“We have now put the work in a more traditional place on a plinth so it can rest after its adventure,” Budding said.
The curator added that there were “no hard feelings” towards the mechanic, who had just started at the museum. “He was just doing his job,” she said.
The director of LAM, Sietske van Zanten, said the incident was “in a way a testament to the effectiveness of Alexandre Lavet’s art”.
“The theme of our collection is food and consumption,” added van Zanten. “Our art encourages visitors to see everyday objects in a new light. By displaying artworks in unexpected places, we amplify this experience, and we try to surprise the visitor all the time.”
According to Lavet’s website, the beer can artwork is "a tribute to Brussels streets, artists’ studios, friends’ flats, parties, exhibition openings at galleries and artist-run spaces, and to this common and familiar object who brings people and friends together."
