There is no universally valid set of rules that clearly defines what is considered art and what is not. It is literally in the eye of the beholder. Quite a few works of art have already been damaged due to this fact and the viewer's ignorance - usually anything but willfully. Sometimes it has even been an attempt at cleaning on the part of the cleaning staff with an unfortunate outcome. One of the most popular examples of this occurred in 1986, when the janitor of the Düsseldorf Art Academy unceremoniously removed the artwork Fettecke by Josef Beuys, who incidentally once made a guest appearance at the Porsche Hotel in Wolfsburg ( -->Szaif, Wasserspiele), from its exhibition site.
Such an accident also occurred in Wolfsburg: in the course of renovation work at the German-Italian Comprehensive School in Wolfsburg's Nordstadt district in 2002, an untitled mural (Fig. 1) by artist Helga Pape disappeared behind fresh paint and wallpaper: "The mural was obviously not recognized as a work of art by the site manager", -__-0001-__- reads a matter-of-factly sober note in the Wolfsburg city files. With the help of the artist herself, the mural was restored in the same year.

At the time of the mishap, the 2.2 meter by 5.5 meter mural from 1967 had already adorned the school kindergarten of the school building for more than 30 years. As part of the design measures for buildings in public spaces, the city's art advisory board had decided at the time to design an interior wall of the school according to a design by Helga Pape.-__-0000-__- The city paid DM 10,000 for the services of the artist, who was a member of the Schloßstraße 8 artists' group. For the independent execution, Pape (Fig. 2) chose a specific Resopal underprinting process-__-0001-__- - a decision that would be central for the future.

"The young artist opted for this special process because it allows for clear, beautiful and precise shapes. She created simple collages - houses, trees, railroad carriages - on a special foil that she had previously painted and glued them on. These were pressed under pressure and heat, the foil melted and only the color substance remained." -__-0000-__-
This was reported in the Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung in the winter of 1967. The article ends with the not insignificant remark that the mural could be easily cleaned of dirt thanks to the special process. A stroke of luck, as would become apparent during the restoration work 35 years later. The "protective film" made it possible for the restoration team to completely uncover Helga Pope's mural and remove dirt and material residue.
It was not the first incident in which a work of art by Pappe had fallen victim to overpainting: After the Schöppenstedt-born artist was awarded the Wolfsburg art prize Junge stadt sieht junge kunst in 1961, the Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer painted one of the prize-winning etchings with black paint during the award ceremony and was promptly arrested by the Wolfsburg police - one of the first art scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany, with which the now renowned artist hoped to draw attention to his exhibition entitled Übermalungen, which opened only a short time later in Hanover.__-0001-__- For Helga Pape, this episode marked the beginning of her career as an artist in the Wolfsburg artists' collective Schloßstraße 8.