LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — A museum visitor will probably think twice before she snaps selfies in the future, after she did so last Thursday in a Los Angeles art gallery and resulted $200,000 in damages.
The university student from China was viewing an installation called "Hypercaine," which was a collaboration between Hong Kong artist Simon Birch and other artists, including Gabriel Chan, Jacob Blitzer and Gloria Yu, the Shanghaiist reported.
Prior to the incident, CCTV footage showed visitors carefully admiring and walking around in a room decorated with dozens of rectangular pedestals holding sculpted crowns and other headpieces.
Then comes the student and her friend, the girl decided to squat down to snap her selfie, which led to her falling backward into one of the displays, turning the exhibition into a game of dominoes. After wrecking much of the exhibition, the girl actually remained calm, and even put one headpiece back onto its pedestal.
According to the exhibition's marketing team, three of the sculptures were "permanently damaged and others to varying degrees". And factoring in the artists' work time, potential art sales lost, and the repair costs, the estimated damage caused was a total of $200,000.
Some people had speculated the incident was a stunt, but the exhibition confirmed to Fox News that the accident was real, and explained it would be irrational for the artists to damage their own work in the hopes to gain more fame.
The art show is already back on display with one change — visitors can no longer walk between the rows of art pieces while photography is still encouraged.
