3 Piglets Were Left to Starve in a Shocking Art Exhibit. The Artist’s Friend Admits Hatching Plot to Steal Them

Three piglets that were being deliberately starved as part of a controversial art exhibition have been stolen, according to the artist.

Marco Evaristti, a Chilean artist living in Denmark, told The New York Times this week that the piglets were swiped from his exhibit at a former butcher’s shop in Copenhagen on Saturday, March 1.

He told the outlet that a maintenance crew briefly left the room to clean a toilet while animal rights activists were present. “After four minutes, they come out and it was no pigs.”

Copenhagen police told the Times that nobody had yet been charged in the theft, but Evaristti claimed in an interview with the Associated Press that they had been stolen with assistance from a friend of his, Casper Steffensen.

Reached for comment, Steffensen confirms to PEOPLE he had “arranged” for the Organization Against the Suffering of Animals (OASA) to rescue the piglets from Evaristti, whom he described as his hero.

“Marco is very dedicated to his work, and even though he has a big heart for animals, he would sacrifice them to make a greater statement,” Steffensen told PEOPLE in an email. “I couldn’t bare to watch [or] be a part of it — so early Saturday morning before we opened I arranged for OASA to rescue them.”

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He noted that he had grown fond of the piglets and made the decision to assist in their rescue after his young daughter asked him if Evaristti planned to starve them.

Inquiries from PEOPLE to Evaristti and Copenhagen police were not immediately returned.

The piglets were trapped in a makeshift cage made of two shopping carts as part of Evaristti’s exhibit, “And Now You Care?,” meant to bring attention to the cruelty of the pork industry in Denmark. More than 27,000 piglets die per day in Danish pig barns, he wrote on Instagram.

Evaristti reported receiving “hate messages” related to the project on social media, and the piece was denounced by animal rights campaigners.

It’s not Evaristti’s first provocative exhibition.

In 2000, Evaristti’s Helena exhibit invited onlookers to press a button on a blender and kill a goldfish swimming inside. Years later, he would make meatballs out of his own body fat, removed via liposuction, and serve them at a dinner party with agnolotti pasta.