About 250 people gathered in Chicago's Millennium Park to try to manually shift the multi-ton mirrored Cloud Gate sculpture 18 centimeters to the left, infohub.kz reports.
The joke action, dubbed Push the Bean, was organized through social media. Anonymous flyers urged residents to come to the artwork on Sunday afternoon and push the steel structure together. The flash mob was inspired by a popular local internet meme claiming that a person is supposedly sealed inside the mirrored object and needs to be freed.
Participants approached the task with humor: dozens of people pressed their hands against the smooth sides of the artwork at the same time, trying to move it, while others filmed the scene. The 110-ton sculpture did not yield to the crowd's efforts and stayed put. One musician present jokingly declared success, claiming it had shifted a couple of centimeters, but later confirmed that the giant had not budged.
Created by British sculptor Anish Kapoor and unveiled in 2006, the piece has long been one of the city's main landmarks. Local authorities have repeatedly denied rumors of people inside the hollow structure, but the amusing myth keeps spawning such viral city gatherings.