MIAMI, Dec. 5 (UPI) — Patrons at an Art Basel event in Miami obliviously watched a woman being stabbed on her arms and neck Friday night, thinking it was performance art.
Police said Siyuan Zhao, a New York City resident, pulled an X-Acto knife on another woman during the show’s main event inside the Miami Beach Convention Center. As the stabbing was going on, patrons and exhibitors at the show casually walked by and watched.
Miami artist Naomi Fisher said she heard the scuffle and later saw a woman being taken away by paramedics. Another exhibitor snapped a photo of a woman in white clothing covered in blood, Fisher said. The victim, who was taken to a local hospital, received non life-threatening injuries in what police called an unprovoked attack.
“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,'” she told the Miami Herald.
Another patron to told the Herald, “People didn’t really know what had happened. It was calm and everyone was milling around and talking.”
The stabbing happened after local police and Art Basel officials announced they were beefing up security in response to the terror attacks in Paris.
