Woman Stabbed at Art Basel, Witnesses Think It's "Performance Art"

Luckily her injuries weren't life threatening.

Image via Miami Herald

There are plenty of must-see exhibitions at this year's Art Basel Miami Beach, but yesterday evening celebrity attendees and Instagram fiends got more than they'd bargained for when an altercation in an exhibit by artist Naomi Fisher led to a stabbing, People reports. Bizarrely, some witnesses to the stabbing thought it was performance art. As Fisher told the Miami Herald, "A guy walked up to me and said, 'I thought I saw a performance, and I thought it was fake blood, but it was real blood.'"

The scuffle broke out around 5:30 p.m. in the Miami Beach Convention Center, which is the main site of the event. Two women began a heated argument, which escalated when one woman pulled out an X-Acto knife and stabbed the other in the arms and neck. Security guards quickly descended on the fight and separated the women (security was beefed up following the Paris attacks), and the victim was taken to the hospital while her attacker, 24-year-old Siyuan Zhao, was led away in cuffs. 

Sara Fitzmaurice, a spokeswoman for Art Basel, said in a statement: "The attack was an isolated incident that was immediately secured. The suspect was apprehended by police who were at the scene within seconds of the incident. Our thoughts are with the victim." Luckily the victim's injuries weren't life threatening. No word yet as to what the fight was about, but it definitely wasn'trepeat was not—a performance.

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