Woman ruins $200,000 worth of art trying to take a selfie at an exhibit

No selfie is worth $200,000.
 By 
Brian Koerber
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

A visitor to the 14th Factory in Los Angeles, California, caused $200,000 worth of damage when she knocked over a display while attempting to take a selfie a few weeks ago.

According to the museum, three sculptures were "permanently damaged" in the incident.

The whole thing was captured on security cameras, and later shared to LiveLeak. In the clip, a woman can be seen crouching in front of a row of sculptures placed on pedestals, presumably trying to take a selfie. She loses her balance, and knocks the pedestal directly behind her over, which then in turn creates a domino effect, knocking over at least 10 pedestals topped with art.

The gallery is described as a "monumental, multiple-media, socially engaged art and documentary experience conceived by the Hong Kong-based British artist Simon Birch."

This is probably not the social engagement they were looking for.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The 14th Factory is a non profit, independent, temporary art project located in Los Angeles, and is only open until he end of the month. Tickets for the event can be purchased here.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The exhibit, titled "Hypercaine" consists of a series of crowns created with different mediums. Below is the description provided by the museum.

Inside a serene space, singular objects rest on plinths: these are crowns, or at least some semblance of what a crown might be, presented as precious trophies or boons. Some are classic in form, intricately crafted while others are very simple in design, as though rendered from a child’s drawing. Others have more elaborate forms: alien, hybrid, they are at times even contorted into inhibiting devices, somewhere between a crown and a mask. Some are fashioned of precious materials like gold or silver, some of marble; others of more humble material like wood, nylon, scrap metal, or dried herbs and flowers. These are variously imagined forms of the goods of desire that we journeyers hope to gain, the boon that awaits us when we have come through the battle. Flanking the crown room is a small, intimate space, inhabited by a collection of actual meteorite stones, modest in appearance but holding within them the secrets of the universe.

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Brian Koerber

Brian was the Culture Editor and has been working at Mashable on the web culture desk since 2014.

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