A naked man showed up at the Met Gala in a glass box, because, well, no one knows why
The Met Gala is one of the most exclusive parties of the year (aside from Rihanna’s Met Gala after party, of course) so it makes sense that there were people all over New York City wondering how to sneak it into it. The theme this year was Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons.”, so even the party crashers were thinking about the biggest statement to make with their arrival. Example: the naked man who showed up at the Met Gala in a glass box.
You have to hand it to him for audacity, but he didn’t get very far. The man was Fyoder Pavlov-Andreevich, a Russian performance artist. He was completely naked and stuffed in a glass case with a locked lid. When he pulled up to the Met, two guys pulled him out of the back of an SUV and drove away.
Let’s hope they were friends of his and some random Lyft drivers. Staff reportedly looked “concerned,” covered the box with a sheet, and then dragged the box out by two strings that were attached to the case. A shocking entrance, but a pretty sorry way to get kicked out of a party.
According to NBC News, police showed up and told the 6-foot-tall man to get out of the box, but he refused. So they had to call in firefighters to cut open the box and arrested him for “public lewdness, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.”
Don’t feel too bad for the guy, though, because this is sort of the entire point. The Met Gala was the fifth time he’s showed up naked in a glass box as part of a series he calls Foundling. He’s done it at the Venice Biennale at Palazzo Cini, the opening of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Christie’s Vanity Fair party in London, and the São Paulo Bienal opening party. Although he’s not always arrested for his performance, it usually gets people (and security) pretty riled up.
No word on if Anna Wintour, the host of the gala, was bothered by the performance. Though the artist might have been more on theme than some of the celebs there that night.
