Police raid gallery after mistaking one sculpture for one person

Two confused police officers stormed a London gallery on Sunday, reportedly under the misconception that a sculpture of a bent over woman was a real person in need of help. Artnet News first reported on the incident at the Laz Emporium, which involved taking a locked door off its hinges to view what turned out to be a sculpture by American artist Mark Jenkins. The work was commissioned by Steve Lazarides, the dealer behind the Laz Emporium and a former agent of Banksy. the sculpture,Kristina (2022), which was based on the gallerist's sister, shows a life-size woman with long blonde hair and a yellow hood who appears to be unconscious, her head buried in a bowl of soup.

The incident took place on November 25, when London's Metropolitan Police responded to a call about a person in distress at the Soho gallery. A few 20 minutes later, just before 6 pm, "police officers forced entry to the address, where they discovered that the person was actually a mannequin," a police spokesman told theinternet. Officers said they received a call claiming that a woman in the gallery "wasn't moving in the last two hours", leading them to believe someone had suffered a heart attack or overdose.

“The job is to provoke and it is definitely achieving that,” Hannah Blakemore, an employee of the gallery, told the internet. The sculpture, which currently hangs in the gallery window, has caused problems before. Paramedics were called to the scene when the sculpture appeared at London's Decorex art and design fair in October.