Art... A human activity having for its purpose
the transmission of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen. -
Leo Tolstoy
Naysayers who believe fairy-tale dreams don’t come true should take a look at a new art installation in the Ukraine that features sleeping beauties.
They should, however, think twice before actually entering the exhibit. Any man who enters the exhibit and kisses one of the rotating sleeping beauties on the lips and sees her eyes open is required to marry her.
“Everybody, any viewer, will have to sign the contract, which says – this is very important, because nobody has to - ‘if I kiss the beauty and she opens her eyes while being kissed, I marry her,’” Taras Polataiko, the Ukrainian-Canadian artist behind the exhibit, told the U.K.’s The Telegraph.
In the modern take on the classic fairy tale popularized by Disney, each “sleeping beauty” lies on an elevated bed in the exhibit, housed at the National Art Museum of Ukraine, in Kiev. Five women have so far signed up to be beauties and will rotate “sleeping,” dressed in an all-white gown, in the museum for two hours at a time daily through the exhibit’s end Sept. 9.
Like their potential Prince Charmings, the beauties also had to sign contracts, putting in writing that, “If I open my eyes while being kissed, I agree to marry the kisser.”
Besides being willing to commit their lives, the men and women who participate also have to be older than 18 and, importantly, not married.
“I hope they [men] come, so it will be more interesting for the beauties,” Polataiko said. “But I really don’t know. It’s a really serious thing. It’s marriage.”
The exhibit opened Aug. 22 but, so far, has not resulted in a love match, contractual or otherwise.