[imagesource: Laz Emporium]

On the evening of Friday, November 25, police received a call from someone concerned about a person who appeared to be unconscious on a table inside a Soho art gallery.

The police arrived twenty minutes later and broke down the door to enter the Laz Emporium, the gallery of Banksy’s former agent.

Once inside, they discovered that the woman slumped over the table was actually a sculpture.

Steve Lazarides, Banksy’s former agent and founder of Laz Emporium told Insider that Hannah Blakemore, who was working in the gallery that day, had “just locked up and gone upstairs to make a cup of tea” only to return to doors off their hinges and “two confused police officers”.

The piece of art, titled ‘Kristina’, features a worn-out woman in a yellow hoodie and black tights with her face down in a bowl of soup.

But to anyone looking in, she looks like a real-life dead woman:

London Police Broke Into the Gallery of Banksy’s Former Agent, Mistaking a Sculpture for a Dead Woman—“somebody reported that the woman here has not been moving for the last two hours”—my latest report in Artnet News @artnet. Full story👉https://t.co/QPY7zMCANG pic.twitter.com/hNZ2LxyE8g

— Vivienne Chow (@VivienneChow) December 9, 2022

‘Kristina’ has confused onlookers before, when emergency services were also called in October while she was on display at an interior design fair known as Decorex.

The piece was created by American artist Mark Jenkins, known for his hyper-realistic human casts, and is meant to depict Lazarides sister also called Kristina:

The realistic look to his art is achieved by creating casts of real people and placing them in sedentary positions, Jenkins said. The “Kristina” sculpture is made with packing tape and foam filler, according to the press release.

Jenkins said people often get confused about the realness of his sculptures but never has a door been broken down to save one of them.

If you happen to be in London, ‘Kristina’ is on display at Laz Emporium until December 24.

Just don’t call the cops.

[source:insider]