A Russian performance artist who wedged his naked body inside of a clear plastic box before being dropped off at the highly-exclusive Met Gala has been arrested. He is facing charges of public lewdness, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespassing, and disorderly conduct, NBC New York reports.
The 41-year-old man, who identified himself as Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, arrived on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art around 8:30 p.m. in a box in which he had squeezed his 6-foot-2 frame, initially causing for some alarm among guests.
When he refused to follow police orders to get out of the transparent box, firefighters had to cut him out.
The stunt is the fifth in a series of performances by Pavlov-Andreevich called Foundling.
Other iterations have been staged at the Palazzo Cini at the Venice Biennale, the opening of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art’s new building in Moscow, the São Paulo Bienal opening dinner, and a Christie’s Vanity Fair party in London.
Play-by-play details of former performances have been documented on Pavlov-Andreevich’s website.
While he was being held in the courthouse, friends took over the artist’s Facebook to provide status updates of his—and the infamous box’s—whereabouts. “If anyone cares about the box’ fate, it’s under arrest as well. After all, it took part in all five performances and has quite travelled around the world.”
A post also goes on to describe the incident, reassuring readers that it was all in good fun: “While police is making a huge issue out of his ‘disorderly conduct and causing panic’, it’s hard to see any of those on the faces of the security or the hosts. The first thing everyone talked about is a perfectly visible alive person inside, no threat. Even the policemen were showing signs of having fun,” it reads.
At present moment, Pavlov-Andreevich has been released from custody and is expected back in court on June 5.
This is not the first time the Met Gala has been crashed by a naked prankster: a man in a pink thong streaked across the entrance to the event in 2014. He, too, was arrested by police.