Giant inflatable dog mess breaks free of its moorings and brings down power line

This giant inflatable faeces (actually a sculpture by the American artist Paul McCarthy) broke free from its moorings at a modern art museum in Switzerland before bringing down a power line.

The artwork, named 'Complex Sh*t', was lifted by a sudden gust of wind from its home at the Paul Klee centre in the city of Berne.

As big as a house, the gigantic inflatable eventually came to rest 200 yards away in the grounds of a children's home.

The giant piece of 'art' broke free from its moorings at a museum in Berne

Museum authorities said the work had an automatic safety device that was supposed to make it deflate in the event of a storm - but it failed to operate.

The museum's director Juri Steiner said Mr McCarthy had not yet been informed of the fate of his artwork, and that he had not yet decided whether to reinstall it in the centre's garden.

The sculpture was featured in an exhibition called "East of Eden. A Garden Show".

The Paul Klee centre's website described the show as containing 'interweaving, diverse, not to say conflictive emphases and a broad spectrum of items to form a dynamic exchange of parallel and self-eclipsing spatial and temporal zones.'

McCarthy is well known for his inflatable artworks, two of which - Blockhead and Daddies Bighead - were displayed outside the Tate Modern in London in 2003.