A rather bizarre act of vandalism was recently reported at an art exhibition in Moscow, where a security guard damaged an art exhibit and tried to eat it.

Last week, the organizers of a contemporary art exhibition at Moscow’s VDNKh permanent exhibition center noticed that one of the exhibits was missing its main protagonist. Named “Escape of the Goldfish”, the art piece featured a goldfish bowl with a goldfish sticking out of it right next to a painting of the open sea, with another goldfish stuck to it as if it had jumped from the bowl and into the waves. A thought-provoking concept, and one that caught the eye of the security guard on duty, only instead of admiring it from a distance and doing his job, the guy vandalized the very thing he was paid to protect.

In a video doing the rounds on Russian social media, the intrigued guard can be seen approaching Escape of the Goldfish and casually pulling on the two fish. At one point, he holds the painting of the open sea with one hand and pulls on the goldfish with the other until it comes off. He then smells the fish, which we assume is fake, and tries to take a bite of it.

When organizers noticed that Escape of the Goldfish had been vandalized, they checked the security cameras and were shocked to see the security guard doing the very thing he was paid to prevent. When confronted about his behavior, the man simply shrugged and said that he had had a tough night with very little sleep, and he did not understand what he was doing when he vandalized the art piece.

 

The man has been suspended from his job and Escape of the Goldfish was restored after a few days.