Is this art or abuse?

[Max]

This is really disturbing to me, and I can see the point the artist is trying to make, but I, personally, don't think it was necessary.

http://www.theginblog.com/2007/10/artis ... mal-abuse/

So, is this art or abuse?

Disclaimer: Not for anyone who lost a dog recently.

[Max]

The link isn't working. Here's another one.

http://www.theginblog.com/?p=135&cp=19

This is one of those things you come across and just have to blink a couple times and ask, “is this real?”. In fact it is.

Guillermo Habacuc Vargas had 2 children catch this dog. He paid the kids for this. He then chained the dog and used the dog as “art”. He told everyone not to feed this dog. The dog died in the gallery. He calls himself an artist. I call him an animal abuser. In that event, (in which the dog died) he was chosen to represent his country in the “Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008″.

There is a petition to ban him from this event, which you can visit by clicking this link.

After reading that and digging around, I found this site with a little more information on the incident:

A Costa Rican artist found himself in hot water with the animal protection people in his home country after using a starving, sick street dog as part of an exposition in Managua, Nicaragua, in August. Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas allegedly found the dog tied up on a street corner in a poor Nicaragua barrio and brought it to the showing. He tied the dog, according to furious animal lovers, in a corner of the salon where it died.

Here is another link about the incident as well, although it’s in another language and I’ve been unable to translate it thus far.

There will always be cultural boundaries and different definitions of what is defined as “art”, but I’ve always maintained that any sort of suffering is pointless. Especially when something like this was preventable.

[Flagg]

I'm not one to judge wether it's art or not, but that's also beside the point. The guy is a sadistic fuck who needs to get his ass thrown in jail.

[Kanastrous]

I think it's more a sociological experiment, than it is art, and I'm pretty damned depressed by the experiment's findings - that people will allow an animal to starve to death right in front of them, if they're told that it's "art," and it's placed in the context of a gallery where they figure that whatever they see there, must qualify as "art" and is therefore outside normal considerations of basic decency.

Jail's too good for him.

Chain his sorry ass in a corner, and let him fucking starve to death. I'd sell tickets and advertise it as a goddamned performance piece.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I think this miserable son of a bitch needs to be publicly stoned to death

[rhoenix]

Advocating inhumane acts against one who has performed an inhumane act gets us as a people nowhere, as this is the same sort of bullshit reasoning that got us Guatanimo Bay and others.

More on topic as a reply to the OP, this is most certainly not art, as it harmed another living being. Jail time definitely seems appropriate for him, as well as public ridicule.

[Kanastrous]

Confinement and public ridicule, being humane?

[salm]

The visitors not reacting are just as guilty as the artist himself.

[Kanastrous]

The visitors not reacting are just as guilty as the artist himself.

Absolutely.

I'd like to think that I walked into this gallery, I'd be able to call in a couple friends via cell phone, and get that dog to a vet, if we have to leave bootprints on the gallery staff, to do it.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The visitors not reacting are just as guilty as the artist himself.

Absolutely.

I'd like to think that I walked into this gallery, I'd be able to call in a couple friends via cell phone, and get that dog to a vet, if we have to leave bootprints on the gallery staff, to do it.

Basically. I dont know a single one of my friends who would not have done the same thing, called me... I distract everyone with a moralistic speech while they get the dog to safety

[salm]

This could actually be pretty good piece if he only made the dog look like it was starving. Let it lie there looking fucked up and then film the visitors passing by and not doing anything. Then on the next exhibition show the movie.

[rhoenix]

Confinement and public ridicule, being humane?

This coming from you, who only a few posts ago in the same thread advocated:

his sorry ass in a corner, and let him fucking starve to death. I'd sell tickets and advertise it as a goddamned performance piece.

I'm seeing a logical disconnect with your perception of humane treatment.

But to more directly answer your question, yes, drawing public attention to this and putting him in jail is the acknowledged humane treatment accorded to those who break the law. In this case, it seems entirely appropriate.

[rhoenix]

Duct-tape edit: the quote of Kanastrous' in my post above should begin with the word "Chain."

[salm]

Basically. I dont know a single one of my friends who would not have done the same thing, called me... I distract everyone with a moralistic speech while they get the dog to safety

This was in Honduras. I guess street dogs are just as common there as in other middle or south American countries. I´ve never been there but in my experience people who live in countries with street dogs tend to hate their guts. Just like we hate pigeons. I think if someone chained up a pigeon and let it starve to death i wouldn´t do much against it. I know that it´s moraly wrong but i hate theses fuckers so much that i´d probably ignore it.
Now a dog is more sapient than a pigeon, so it´s worse but i can somehow understand where the people are coming from.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I cant. Then again I have a pigeon nest on my balcony. I have watched the massive ugly but oddly cute hatchling grow

[LadyTevar]

I cant. Then again I have a pigeon nest on my balcony. I have watched the massive ugly but oddly cute hatchling grow

I can. The fuckers have gotten up under the eaves and moved over my kitchen sink. The nasty, noisy bastards are up there *constantly*, rattling around, hoo-ing and coo-ing and leaving pigeon-poop all over the windowsills. I refuse to open some of my kitchen windows because of it.

[Covenant]

One of the big issues is that he actually hurt something for the art. He could have achieved the same result by having a dog stuffed and posed and laid there, or by arranging a series of pictures, or something. By putting an actual dog there to die he has gone from abstracting or representing reality to just making it. Building a car to symbolize something is not art, it's just a car. If you made a car out of M&Ms or something, that's different. He didn't make a paper mache dog out of photos of starving children or something poignant, he just made himself the exhibit. Poor show.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I cant. Then again I have a pigeon nest on my balcony. I have watched the massive ugly but oddly cute hatchling grow

I understand that killing is sometimes necessary, but suffering? Never.

[Kamakazie Sith]

One of the big issues is that he actually hurt something for the art. He could have achieved the same result by having a dog stuffed and posed and laid there, or by arranging a series of pictures, or something. By putting an actual dog there to die he has gone from abstracting or representing reality to just making it. Building a car to symbolize something is not art, it's just a car. If you made a car out of M&Ms or something, that's different. He didn't make a paper mache dog out of photos of starving children or something poignant, he just made himself the exhibit. Poor show.

Quite correct. It would be like those same photos of people killed by combat actions, but instead the author is going out shooting people.

[Saurencaerthai]

A common view in aesthetics and art is that art occurs between the work, the creator, and the audience. If the artist's intent was to have many people have a unified feeling towards him, he succeeded. What a sick fucker.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Not only is it art, but it's art in the purest, Dionysian sense, which always involves frenzy and emotional excitability. I applaud him for his courage, notwithstanding any moral considerations. For those who cannot see any value whatsoever in cruelty (ignoring for the moment the usefulness and practicality of such highly refined forms of cruelty as vivisection, autopsy, and the judicial system), simply regard it as a social experiment.

[Edi]

I saw that at work yesterday. It's extraordinarily cruel abuse and the guy who did that is a worthless piece of shit. I would not be surprised if he actually got fucked up and hospitalized at some point if he runs into certain kinds of people. And if that does happen, I'll be drinking a toast to whoever does it.

[darthbob88]

I am opposed to censoring art, mostly because it is so very terribly subjective as to whether or not something is art. However, I'm inclined to ask this dude to explain what he hoped to gain from this social experiment, what he wanted to illustrate with this art, and whether or not it was really worth killing a dog, a sentient(?) being. Hold him up to as much public disdain as possible, showing off what a sadistic ass he is. Afterwards, eh, Salm has a good idea. Repeat this "art exhibit" with him taking the place of the dog. Make sure he gets a can of dog food at the end of the day, since starving him to death would be terribly inhumane.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Not only is it art, but it's art in the purest, Dionysian sense, which always involves frenzy and emotional excitability. I applaud him for his courage, notwithstanding any moral considerations. For those who cannot see any value whatsoever in cruelty (ignoring for the moment the usefulness and practicality of such highly refined forms of cruelty as vivisection, autopsy, and the judicial system), simply regard it as a social experiment.

I'm not sure how you can applaud yet another person who preyed on something weaker to get some sort of gain. I'm also not sure how his actions involve courage. If you mean he did so despite the possibility that another citizen will kick his ass then I disagree because he has laws that offer him some sort of protection.

No, this person is somebody who is probably suffering from an antisocial disorder and needs help.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Not only is it art, but it's art in the purest, Dionysian sense, which always involves frenzy and emotional excitability. I applaud him for his courage, notwithstanding any moral considerations. For those who cannot see any value whatsoever in cruelty (ignoring for the moment the usefulness and practicality of such highly refined forms of cruelty as vivisection, autopsy, and the judicial system), simply regard it as a social experiment.

I'm not sure how you can applaud yet another person who preyed on something weaker to get some sort of gain. I'm also not sure how his actions involve courage. If you mean he did so despite the possibility that another citizen will kick his ass then I disagree because he has laws that offer him some sort of protection.

No, this person is somebody who is probably suffering from an antisocial disorder and needs help.

Because I have no truck with the sort of moralism which wants everything to conform to some middle-class image of erudite sociability. What he did is utterly deplorable, and precisely for this reason was, in a sense, absolutely necessary. I do not condemn cruelty - even excessive cruelty - out of hand. This is no more immoral than the monk who lights himself on fire in protest of war.

As for courage? He ran the risk of some stand-up passerby happening upon his show and, deciding that he'd make himself look the upright citizen in front of his peers, choosing to do him bodily harm for it. The law does not apply itself retroactively; he'd still have suffered pain and defied that possibility. Had this been a private event I'd not hold it in such esteem.

It is possible to commit an action which is both brave and evil, however much our learned society, in the aftermath of the World Wars, might like to delude itself otherwise. Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' is an insipid generalization: I admire what is courageous, good or evil.