Chicago’s Viral ‘Bean’ Stunt Inspires Londoners to Move the Marble Arch

Londoners want to get in on the viral stunt of the Bean, British Indian artist Anish Kapoor’s silvery sculpture Cloud Gate (2006), by wanting to move the Marble Arch, designed by John Nash in 1827.

“Bean there, done that,” as Ocula reports, responding to a public listing on the platform Partiful planned for Saturday, inviting people to move the 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch 17.78 cm (7 inches) to the left, the same distance that Chicagoans recently tried to push Kapoor’s sculpture in the city’s Millennium Park. The Chicago stunt failed to work, primarily because the Bean, as the public artwork is nicknamed, weighs 110 tons.

The event description on Partiful said, “We have been made aware that the top floor of the marble arch [sic] was used for incarceration. People could still be trapped inside.” A representative of the artist Stuart Semple, who is known for disputing with Anish Kapoor in the past over questions like paint color, told Ocula that Londoners supported Chicago bean-pushers. The representative added that “planning to push the Arch to send a clear message that the bloke in the Bean must be freed” and that “moving the Arch will prove to Chicago that it’s possible, and will hopefully inspire them to try again to free the man.”

The Bean-pushing phenomenon has been all fun and games on social media. The Instagram account @Maninabean on Monday said that “as a coalition of non-violent like-minded individuals, we commend all action towards freeing the man.” The Instagram account was created in 2025 with its first published post on July 28, 2025 with the caption of “HE IS IN THERE,” accompanied by a paper cutout of a man inside a bean.