Wim T Schippers "Peanut Butter Platform" / museum visitors
In 2011, an iteration of this 1969 floor-bound installation was damaged on several occasions while on view at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.
The work itself is true to its name: 1,100 liters of creamy peanut butter spread over a 14x4m expanse on the ground. Unfortunately, this iteration of the piece was installed without guardrails, which led to four separate visitors accidentally stepping onto the artwork.
In the wake of these events, museum officials refused to cordon off the piece, explaining that such an intervention would not be aesthetically pleasing. They did, however, send each of the museum visitors a bill for the restoration of the piece, which involved museum staff applying new layers of peanut butter to even out the surface.
