Here's a party crasher the Academy didn't expect.
A Los Angeles-based artist known as Plastic Jesus placed a life-size Oscar statue kneeling on all fours, while snorting two lines of cocaine, on Hollywood Boulevard Thursday morning -- days before the Academy Awards. The statue sits at La Brea Avenue, just feet from where the streets will be closed off for celebrities to walk the red carpet on Sunday.
La Brea and Hollywood Blvd #oscars2015 #oscars #academyawards #hollywood #streetart #streetartla A photo posted by Plastic Jesus (@plasticjesus) on Feb 19, 2015 at 9:54am PST
#Oscars2015 pic.twitter.com/HYsnsfSyTF— Plastic Jesus (@plasticjesusart) February 19, 2015
"The piece is intended to draw attention to Hollywood’s hidden problem of drug addiction that effects [sic] hundreds of people in the showbiz industry, and is largely ignored until the death of a high-profile A-list celebrity," Nick Stern, a photographer who works with Plastic Jesus, said in a statement to LAist.
Plastic Jesus pulled a similar stunt before last year's Academy Awards, placing at the same location an 8-foot Oscar statue injecting his arm with heroin. The street art was apparently a response to the untimely death of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in 2014 of a drug overdose.
'Hollywood's best kept secret'... Now situated on Hollywood & La Brea. #philipseymourhoffman #hollywood #heroin #drugs #addiction #oscars2014 #streetart #streetartla A photo posted by Plastic Jesus (@plasticjesus) on Feb 28, 2014 at 4:07am PST
Plastic Jesus told New York Daily News last year that his cousin and cousin's wife both died from heroin overdoses, making his artistic statement more personal.
It seems the Academy may have attempted to remove the heroin statue last year, but no word yet if the cocaine-snorting statue will be left alone this year.