Apr 18 2008

I cant even believe this is true

Ok, maybe I’m late to the game.  A lot escapes me.  I admit that.

But a friend of a friend just sent me and invite to a facebook group called “Prevent the ‘Artistic’ Death of a Dog”..

Apparently,

In 2007, the ‘artist’ Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery and began starving him to death.

For several days, the ‘artist’ and the visitors of the exhibition watched, emotionless, the shameful ‘masterpiece’ based on the dog’s agony, until eventually he died.

Does THIS sound like art to you?

But this is not all… the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of Central America decided that the ‘installation’ WAS actually art, so Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the Biennial of 2008.

(copied from the facebook group)

The following links are provided for signing petitions to help stop this action from being repeated:

http://www.petitiononline.com/…

http://www.petitiononline.com/…

There are responses on the facebook page stating that this story is not true, and I want to believe that it isnt…REALLY want to believe that it is completely and totally false.  Please, tell me that it’s false…

These are the only verifying links that appear on the facebook page:

http://news.softpedia.com/news…

http://luckybunnynyc.blogspot….

http://www.euroweeklynews.com/…

and you’ll have to forgive me that i really dont want to try to find out more about this.  

So, true or not, what could it hurt to sign the petition(s)??

65 comments

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  1. and if so, i have no problem removing the essay and pretending i never heard of it….   8..(

  2. pure and simple.

    only sick people would stand by and watch any creature starve to death when they could prevent it or stop it.

    it makes me powerfully angry. and produces a sadness that feels bottomless.

    these things get me to a point where i think… the planet, maybe the solar system, further the galaxy, would be better off without us.

    fuck. and no, it does NOT hurt to sign the petition… if this is a made-up story, then so what. but if it’s true, then i hope it’s a landslide.

    • nocatz on April 18, 2008 at 06:10
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  4. supposed to be happening and then contact the local SPCA?

    They sure as hell wouldn’t view this as art!  Signing petitions

    is all well and good… but freeing and feeding

    the poor dog will end the problem.  

  5. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art…

    Vargas, 32, said he wanted to test the public’s reaction, and insisted none of the exhibition visitors intervened to stop the animal’s suffering. He refused to say whether the animal had survived the show, but said he had received dozens of death threats.

    Juanita Bermúdez, director of the Códice Gallery, insisted Natividad escaped after just one day. She said: ‘It was untied all the time except for the three hours the exhibition lasted and it was fed regularly with dog food (the artist) himself brought in.’

    I hope Ms. Bermúdez is correct.

  6. that claims the exhibit was a bit of a hoax that intended to show that people are sheep… right here.

  7. Poor nocatz was brave enough to say he did not think art had an obligation to be moral and he got a bit roasted.

    The issue to me isn’t whether art should or should not be moral but what we do about it when it is judged not to be, who renders the judgment, and who ends up owning the debate, the creator or the consumer.

    I actually think it is pretty complicated.

  8. I hope the reports are unfounded and this is just one of those fake stories that is circulated every so often.

    It may be art, it may not. That issue is beside the point. No one should be allowed to starve an animal.

    Where’s my revolver?

    • nocatz on April 19, 2008 at 01:54
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    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24…

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