How can I deal with the ghastly artwork in my office?

There’s a piece of art on a wall at work. It’s one of the first things you see as you enter our office and I absolutely hate it. It’s so gross. Sure, art is subjective – blah blah blah. But I’m telling you this is awful. It would be better for everyone if it wasn’t there, and I need to find a way to get rid of it without arousing too much suspicion.

Throw some ideas my way, would you, Work Therapist?

Issues such as hideous artwork at work can be bad for morale.Credit: John Shakespeare

Goodness! I’m intrigued by what this piece of art is, and devastated you weren’t able to provide an image. I imagine huge blobs of a thick, brown-and-white marbled oil paint smeared in two uneven lines across the canvas (pre-treated with soy sauce, which you can still smell) but protruding several centimetres outward like foetid waves emerging from an evil, vertical sea.

There are tassels of bright orange crêpe paper hanging from one side of this gravity-defying excrement and a toy from an early-1990s McHappy Meal pasted upside down on the other. It’s a postmodern comment on the inherent pleasure of consumption.

Am I close?

My immediate thought upon reading your email was why not embrace your disgust and see where it takes you: presumably to pulling the monstrosity unceremoniously from the wall and flinging it out the nearest window.

Let me leave you with one word for you to interpret in any way you see fit: flamethrower.

I ran this idea past several experts on art, work safety and work culture. In their respective responses to me, they all used words like “unprofessional”, “idiotic” and “potentially highly dangerous”. I was miffed by their unadventurousness but admit they may have had a point, especially if your office is several storeys up.

So, what should you do if you don’t want to “participate in an exercise of childish excess” (as one particularly uptight expert put it)? Well, why not participate in an exercise of childish moderation?

One tactic could be to comment on the painting every single time you see it while in the presence of a colleague. You might consider phrases like “Good grief – it’s hideous!“, “Why is that rotting pile of compost framed?” or “I want to fling that thing out the window.” Think of it like a propaganda campaign … against an inanimate object.

Another tactic might be to do the same thing but in reverse. Gush over the painting while around colleagues, and make your praise sickening – just the most saccharine disgorgement imaginable. Call it “spunky” or “hunky” or other words nobody ever uses anymore to express sexual attraction.

You’ll lose friends and professional credibility, but it will be worth it: your raving commendations will become so insufferable someone will be forced to take matters into their own hands, and you might find the work is flung out the window for you.

Or, what about creating your own piece of art (about the same size would be best)? One day, come into the office earlier than everyone else and simply exchange yours for the other. If the thing is as bad as you say, surely nobody will care that it’s been replaced, even if your own attempt is underwhelming.

When someone inevitably comes across the offending piece where you’ve secreted it - inside the disused 19th century boiler in the haunted basement of your building, probably – I think it’s safe to assume they’ll leave it to be used as a sigil in whatever arcane sorcery the ghosts participate in down there.

If I were going to be more serious for a moment – and I acknowledge that in your longer email you expressly asked me not to be – I would say that there is something genuinely dispiriting about a visually offensive thing being part of your morning work routine. And it’s worse if you’re finding the job itself challenging.

The whole procedure of coming to work – the same car park, the same steps, the same doorway, the same office every morning, five days a week – can quickly go from monotonous to nightmarishly repetitive.

And that same objectionable object – the artwork in your case – just makes this pattern all the more unpleasant. After long enough, such a routine can start to seem inescapable, and it can be useful to take a step back and realise escape is possible.

Even a small change to a morning regimen – a different route, a different entry into the building, a different first task of the day – can break down the sense that everything about work will be the same forever.

That got a bit earnest, so let me leave you with one word for you to interpret in any way you see fit: flamethrower.

Send your questions, whether whimsical, weighty or somewhere in between, to [e-mail]

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