Dog dies in the name of 'ART' - petition
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free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:14 am

Hi all,
I hope the mods don't mind me posting this - I don't normally post this sort of thing but I was so heartbroken when I read this I felt I had to try to get as much support to stop this happening again as I could.

In 2007, an 'artist' called Guillermo Vargas Habacuc caught a stray dog on the street, tied it up on a short leash to the wall of an art gallery and left it there to die slowly of hunger and thirst. Over the next few days, the artist himself and visitors to the gallery watched impassively as this happened. Now the prestigious Central American Biennial of Art has decided that this was indeed art and has asked Vargas Habacuc to repeat his actions in the Biennial of 2008. If you don't believe it, Google the artist's name... Please sign the petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/

On the petition page, the four things it asks for are name, email, (which stays private unless you uncheck the box)town and country. The rest is in English, I think.

Be warned if you do decide to check out the validity of this by Googling him - its horrible.
Sad

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:50 am

How cruel is that did not read it all but surprised as artists are usually more down to earth and caring

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:00 am

I signed the petition. I goggled the artists name and was horrified at what I read. The poor dog. The photos I saw had lots of people walking around watching the dog and it looked as though the writing on the walls was made of dog food. Disgusting that someone would even think that was art.

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:42 am

Thanks for the warning about the search results. Hearing about it is more than painful enough Crying or Very sad

I've signed, but I must say that it feels like a much too civilized reaction to such outrageous cruelty!

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:10 am

Thank you for posting this Lucia.

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:02 pm

Thanks all who have signed - grateful if you could pass the link on to as many folk as possible.
There is such a lot of beauty and fabulous art in the world and some incredible artists producing it. The style we prefer is of course, down to personal taste, but I cannot for the life of me conceive how anyone could consider watching a living, breathing and feeling being suffer like this in the name of 'art'.

A case of the Emporers New Clothes......?

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:47 pm

This is horrific. I am appalled. He is sick and evil, and the people who support him are even more so. I hope karma provides complete retribution and that he and all that played a part suffer a fate that compares to what he and they did to that poor animal.

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:49 pm

I signed. A big thank you to Lucia for bringing this to our attention. I feel sick to my stomach over this. It never ceases to amaze me how cruel people can be to those who are weak and defenseless. This depraved man's actions are a black mark on all of humanity, and the whole thing makes me ashamed to say I belong to the human race.

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:09 pm

Actually I would have to disagree about most artists being caring - I am an artist and a caring person, but having met literally hundreds if not thousands of artists, I have found that many of them believe that the ends justify the means and that they can be incredibly self absorbed, arrogant and uncaring. One Belgian artist raises pigs simply so that he can tattoo their hides, then slaughter them to use the hides as art. His justification is that the pigs are better treated by him than they would be if they were being kept for human consumption. As far as I'm concerned, this does not justify keeping them for the purposes of human vanity and is every bit as exploitative as keeping any animal simply for its hide.

I've also personally known artists that have deliberately emotionally traumatised their loved ones and secretly videod it to use as installation art. Also a couple of artists who have faked their own deaths and staged fake funerals in order to capture the emotional turmoil it created for their loved ones. And surely some of you remember the goldfish in a blender? Many artists believe in pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable, and will use anything they can to achieve this.

Thankyou for bringing this to our attention. I have signed the petition and forwarded this to everyone I know, including artists, art galleries and art consultants.

Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:30 pm

It is reprehensible, shameful and vile that inhumanity and torture could be accepted as art. That poor poor dog. How utterly incomprehensible it must have been to him. Thanks for posting this, Lucia.

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:56 pm

So horrible.
Just signed.
Thanks for bringing it up.

Lucy.

free skin care · Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:08 pm

So repulsive. It pretty much brought me to tears. Thanks for posting - I've signed the petition.

How can people be so heartless?

free skin care · Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:27 am

Thankyou so much for your support - lets hope that if this can be stopped then perhaps in future artists who like to 'push the boundaries' may stop and think before they cause pain and suffering whether physical or emotional. We can live in hope.

free skin care · Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:22 pm

Signed the petition; christ, I can't believe this.

Luckylouie, I have to address your comment. I am an artist and I see through the artist lens; the ends certainly do NOT justify the means. To me and many others, the journey is just as important as the destination. It really pisses me of that someone calls something like this art. It's not. Just because someone hangs something on a wall and calls it art doesn't make it so. This is merely someone's crap on a wall; literally and figuratively.

free skin care · Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:13 am

I've signed and passed the details on to others.

From what I understand, the artist now keeps changing his story as to why he did this. It's obviously just a big publicity "look at how radical I am!" stunt. Shame on the art council for pandering to his neediness and cruelty.

Apparently, visitors begged to be allowed to either feed or give a home to the dog but were refused each time.

This gives art a very bad name, as it does to those who support such barbaric nonsense.

free skin care · Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:57 am

majorb - thanks for the update on his story.
Completely agree with you - sticking a label on something doesn't make it so.

free skin care · Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:50 am

Quote:

One Belgian artist raises pigs simply so that he can tattoo their hides, then slaughter them to use the hides as art.

i may be incorrect, but i think i remember reading somewhere that Hitler did something similar to humans that he had slaughtered, experimented with making lampshades and such from human skin. Would these people consider that art too?

free skin care · Wed Mar 12, 2008 2:16 am

Athena123, you may not believe that the ends justify the means - neither do I - but some artists do! And unfortunately there are plenty of people who are willing to call anything art and pay a lot of money for it.

I was not implying that all artists are uncaring. If you reread my comment you will see that I wrote many of them are, not all of them. I was simply pointing out that just because someone is an artist does not automatically mean that he/she is a decent person. Some are wonderful people, and some are heartless creeps.

free skin care · Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:49 am

I'm just wondering about his feeling if someone would like to do the same to him...... Would he say the same. I hate people like this.

free skin care · Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:14 am

I agree it is unbelieveably cruel and stupid, and would like to sign to prevent it happening, but I am leary of signing something I can't understand! I don't speak Spanish - could someone translate please?

free skin care · Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:46 pm

Hi ya - I don't speak Spanish either but someone I know well can and translated the general gist of it - I basically quoted that in my original post.
Hope that helps put your mind at ease..
Smile

free skin care · Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:49 pm

My roommate translated it:

In the middle of controversy, the Costa Rican Bienal of Visual Arts (Bienarte) 2007 inaugurated last night a strict and small selection of works and awarded seven artists with the permit to represent the county at the Central American Bienal Honduras 2008.

The prize-winning artists in this seventh edition of the prestigious meeting of contemporary art were Errol Barrantes, Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, Oscar Figueroa, Mimiam Hsu, Estaban Piedra, and "the band of submerged-emergentes" Sila Chanto and Jhafis Quintero.

The judge, composed of Ana Sokoloff (Colombia), Oliver Debroise (Mexico), and Rodolfo Kronfle Chambers (Ecuador), chose the artists based on works of great quality and excellent coherence between idea and execution, according to their detail.

The Bienarte is organized by the Businessmen of the Arts.
*******************

One of the "artists", Guillermo Habacuc Vargas allowed the death of a dog by starvation during the event.

It is inadmissible that they trample on this form of animal rights and that the "artist" had found it in the street and let it die tied it up by a cord to a wall of the gallery where it had the opportunity to do nothing, not even save itself.

-------------------------

Blog from Rodrigo Penalba

I found out that the dog died the next day from lack of food. During the inauguration, I found out that the dog was caught that afternoon between aluminum and cardboard houses in the neighborhood of Managua with the name of a saint that Habacuc couldn't specify at the moment. The 5 children that helped him capture it received ten dollars for their collaboration. During the exhibition some people asked to free the dog, but the artist refused. The name of the dog was Nativity and they let it die of starvation in front of everyone, as if the death of the dog were a shameless show where no one did anything more than applaud and watch without reaction.

-------------------------

We can't do anything for this dog except try to have the Central American Bienal Honduras 2008 not allow this animal-maltreating "artist". I beg you to adhere to the stated diligence and spread this shameful act to as many people as possible so as many signatures as possible can be collected and and presented in the bienal.

free skin care · Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:48 am

Thanks so much for the translation - my friend only has basic spanish so its good to see it translated fully.

free skin care · Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:38 am

Yes, thank you so much.

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