Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/11/german-police-recover-valuable-surrealist-painting-that-had-been-tossed-into-the-airport-trash-can.html
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Surreal.
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They just tossed a painting in the trash? There’s just no excuse for something like that, but i’m glad it was safely recovered
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Hello Dali.
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Really surreal.
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The linked article says it was an a cardboard box. Doesn’t say if the box was marked or labelled in any way. It may have just looked like an abandoned box.
I get the mind can play tricks when you are rushing your way through the airport, but forgetting to take the package with the valuable painting?
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Funny you should say that. Tanguy’s niece said Dali once told her, “I stole everything I ever did from your uncle Yves.” And it’s not a surprising claim when you look at some of Dali’s early surrealist work.
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One time i left my laptop at security even though i’m always very particular about my electronics (though my excuse was that our family dog was being put down at that time so i was pretty distressed). But i don’t know… leaving a really valuable painting behind is something i can’t imagine doing but you never know. I’d be clutching that thing as if my life depended on it 
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Showing once again airports don’t give two fucks about your stuff.
Pretentious critic voice activated: I picture throwing the painting in the trash as a meta-statement on the capitalistic underpinnings of artistic endeavors undertaken by a class of creators acting in subservience and dependency to an owner class, all of whom are served by a caste of servant class individuals who can’t be bothered to examine the contents of the detritus they’re forced to sift through in order to put meager meals on their tables. The way the other trash flowed over the original painting reflects the “trickle down” economic principles at play.
I started off trying to be sarcastic but I think I kind of enjoyed that. I’m now retiring to be an art critic, and not a very good one.
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He was lucky he didn’t leave it in the Frankfurt airport.
Unfortunately I can see myself doing this. You’re stressed out, out of your routine and it only takes a second to leave it behind. I’m pretty careful about maintaining a travel routine (i.e., I try to maintain physical contact with all my luggage and I try to pack light so I don’t have much of it), but that only goes so far.
And all bets are out the window when you’re doing a layover in Frankfurt after a flight from North America. (I have not lost anything there but I have had some unpleasant experiences. My wife claims it’s a nice city but I have yet to see evidence of that.)
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Jeez everyone’s a critic.
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I’ve left my hat behind in an airport. Oh well.
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But do you really see yourself carrying around a $300K painting like it was the paperback you were going to read on the plane?
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What kind of monster puts canvas in a paper recycling bin?
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Did it look like this?
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But do you really see yourself carrying around a $300K painting like it was the paperback you were going to read on the plane?
if I was planning to smuggle the painting, then yes. I don’t know the particulars of Israel’s customs policy, but bringing a $300,000 object of any variety as hand luggage reeks of money laundering.
Glad the artwork was recovered, but not sure I feel much sympathy with the schmuck who lost it.
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…and Tanguy started painting after seeing a work by de Chirico. An example (but I don’t know which one Tanguy saw):
According to Wikipedia, de Chirico was accepted into the Surrealist group but they were skeptical of him. I heard this differently, but I’ve never seen it in writing: apparently the surrealists went to de Chirico and invited him in, saying that what he did was everything that they were about (or were trying to do). De Chirico denied this, said he had nothing to do with them and moreover told them to hit the road and don’t come back.
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