Woman stabbed in attack mistaken for performance art by witnesses at Miami gallery

An unnamed victim is knifed in the arms and neck

The Art Basel gallery in Miami the day after the attack took place (Getty Images)

A woman has been charged with attempted murder after another woman was attacked at an art exhibition in what was wrongly believed to be performance art.

Siyuan Zhao is alleged to have stabbed the unnamed victim in the arms and neck with an X-Acto knife shortly in a corridor outside an art installation at Miami gallery, Art Basel.

Local police confirmed the victim’s injuries were not life threatening and she was transported to a nearby hospital.

Zhao was arrested at the scene.

The owner of the installation, Naomi Fisher, said she heard a scuffle outside her exhibit and went out to see a woman being wheeled out by paramedics.

Describing the incident as “horrible”, she 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.’”

She said a fellow artist at the gallery showed her a picture taken on a mobile phone of a woman dressed in white who was covered in blood.

Art Basel representatives said the two women were visitors to the gallery rather than exhibitors.

A spokeswoman for Art Basel, Sara Fitzmaurice, 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.”