miklos kiss smuggles 14 carat golden roaches into famous museums

miklos kiss smuggles 14 carat golden roaches into famous museums 
all images courtesy of miklos kiss

smuggled into international temples of art — from the tate modern in london to paris’ pompidou center — the golden roach project by budapest-based artist miklós kiss engages exhibition-goers first-hand in a guerilla art movement. kiss has secretly brought thousands of gold-hued bugs — made from handmade injection molded plastic — into museums around the world, naturally placing them as if they belong in the space and making them part of current exhibition. matching souvenirs placed on postcards, brooches, stickers and badges have been placed in gallery shops. during their stay in the exhibition space, visitors had the opportunity to collect one ‘goldenroach’ and bring it home with them, and the participation offered a surprising twist. a lucky individual would receive a real, 14 carat gold piece mixed in the mass of metallic critters.

golden roaches peek out from under the wall in an exhibition space

the motif of the roach is not a random choice, and has multiple symbolic values. kiss describes, ‘the roach is one of the most disgusting insects, which is capable of getting inside anything, and also earned a doubled fame in public awareness by its imperishability. people treat the roach as a synonym for disgust because of the common repugnance it causes, but at the same time, as an insect which is capable of adapting the most extreme situations, it is a symbol of survival’

a close detail of a 14 carat golden roaches

visitors are able to take one of the mass arrangements home with them

one of the bugs is made of real gold, while the others are false

set in the exhibition space

the exhibition eventually has become a legal one, where visitors line up to view the spectacle