The Guillermo Vargas Incident.

[Kelp]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Vargas_Habacuc

The sources at the bottom there are certainly worth checking out. Guillermo "Habacuc" Vargas, a Costa Rican artist took a stray dog off the streets of Managua, Nicoragua and tied it up in a local art gallery. There are internet petitions circling around (including at least one facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26898570848)) claiming that Vargas starved the dog to death and calling for his barring from participation in the Biennial South American art exhibition where he is scheduled to do a repeat of the "starving dog" exhibit.

The International Humane society (http://www.hsus.org/contact_us/humane_society_international.html#Q_dog_artist) and The Guardian (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2269320,00.html) report that the dog was only tied up for 3 hours a day and was fed during the rest of it and then escaped after a day.

Seems like an open and shut case to me. Vargas' stated aim was to test the gallery audience's reaction to what they thought was a starving dog. The fact that they did nothing is pretty telling, imo btw. He hasn't stated whether the dog survived, but from what I've seen, it looks like it did.

So what do people think? Is Vargas a tasteless jerk (assuming the dog survived) who should be barred from the Biennial? Or do you have some evidence suggesting that the dog actually died?

Note the third link on the wiki list is to a blog (that just sort of asserts that the dog died) with a lot of f-bombs in the comments.

[Kelp]

:bump:

[NeilUnreal]

As long as the dog wasn't harmed, I don't see anything wrong with it. I hope, on the contrary, that the dog enjoyed the attention and then went on to some happier home.

Doesn't seem like a particularly deep piece of art, unless Vargas anticipated that the rumors would get started and turn it into a media storm. in which case it is an interesting exercise in hyperreality. If he helped start the rumors, it's still interesting, though that is cheating a wee bit, IMHO.

I think that exhibits using animals, artistic and otherwise, should be closely monitored, but if the dog is OK I don't see why Vargas should be barred from other exhibits. It seems to me to have been a rather effective exercise at arousing people's latent sense of empathy. Perhaps some of the outrage was directed inwards because it took such a theatre of the absurd to do it, when the world is full of starving dog and starving people.

-Neil

[Kelp]

Yeah, they should be closely monitored. There are some art exhibits out there that have actually killed animals.

For instance there was this one guy who had a video made of a bunch of animals being bludgeoned to death by sledgehammers. That was in a San Francisco exhibit IIRC.

[Kelp]

I forgot to add, that Vargas also burned 175 pieces of crack in an incense burner as part of the exhibit. Would exposing that emaciated dog to cocaine like that be harmful to it?

[rogue06]

I forgot to add, that Vargas also burned 175 pieces of crack in an incense burner as part of the exhibit. Would exposing that emaciated dog to cocaine like that be harmful to it?

Sounds like you can do anything illegal as long as you call it "art."

[Kelp]

I don't know if that's illegal in Nicaragua where it happened.

[JonLanceBarker]

:hurl: