At one of the most famous museums in Europe, you can definitely say that "life will be imitating art."
In a promotion for its "Clara and Crawly Creatures" exhibit at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, the museum promises they will be "teaming with animals this season."
Not only will the exhibit feature a display that includes 700 giant ants, a 1505 painting of a stag beetle, and a sculpture crafted out of silk woven by four different spider species, it will also have live insects roaming around the museum.
Cleaning crews have been instructed not to disturb any insect, or SPIDER, on the premises as long as the exhibits are in place.
This request coming from the creator of the spider silk sculpture Thomas Saraceno, who challenged museum officials to "revere" its residential bugs.
Julia Kantelberg, assistant curator at the museum, told the Guardian, "Saraceno challenged us to acknowledge the spiderwebs that we are already cohabiting with in the Rijksmuseum.
"Three months before the exhibition opening, cleaners were asked not to remove spiders and their webs."
Saraceno, who lets spiders have the run of the place at his own home, penned an open letter defending the "invertebrate rights" of the museum's insects, and placed it next to one of the webs that has emerged during those three months.
He wrote, "Spiders have been on the planet [for hundreds of millions of] years and we humans only 300,000. We have asked the museum to stop treating them as pests, and the museum has agreed in a beautiful manner to stop brooming them away."
"Clara and Crawly Creatures" will run at the Rijksmuseum from September 30 through January 15.
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