Changing the dogs environment by placing it in a gallery under the same conditions doesn't automatically make it art.
It's more like a campaign for cruelty against animals.
This guy should work for a local animal protection unit if he cares so much.
He's using the shock method to try and make people more aware of the issues at hand.
I don't think it works though.

He cut the dogs food source off completely by chaining it in the gallery when atleast when it roamed it had the chance of food.

This guy can't care about animals if he does this. He's using the finger pointing tactic to avoid responsibility.

- it never "roamed," it was chained up when it was found

- when found the dog was extremely ill to the point that it did not want to eat

- it died within a day... a normal healthy dog does not die in a day from lack of food.

this dog was basically half dead when they found it.... so, yes they should have taken it to a vet.... maybe it would have lasted two days. but some of these facts change things a bit, no?

So it was already someone elses "art", and this guy claimed it for himself. :rolleyes:

Except the death of a dog on the street is not going to bring some artist attention around the world and the profit that goes with it. The thing that disgusts me more than the dog starving to death (despite his accusations of hypocrisy, I'm not a Honduran and I am angered in the same way when I see a dog starve in the streets) is that the death of this particular dog was advantageous to the artist.

"Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, put a starved dog as a work of art, the poor dog died there, he did not want anyone give him food or water."

That's what bugs me the most. Nobody would stop you from giving a stray dog on the street some food or water if you felt "moved" to do so.
I'm not saying this dog (obviously pretty sick and almost already dead) would have survived much much longer, but giving no chances at all is a deprivation that's pretty cruel.

I don't really understand why the people who were looking at the "exhibit" allowed it to remain as it was. They are just as guilty as the "artist".

Well said

There is no excuse for this kind of cruelty, if the dog was on the street and ill, take it to a vet or call the equivalent animal cruelty people in that country

Dont put it in a gallery and pretend there is some higher ideal to the act like "art"

This guy saw an opportunity for sensationalist media attention and cynically took it

If his art stood on his own merits he wouldn't need to pull stunts like this

fuck no this is not art.

but abuse has merit where it shows up the hypocrisy of western civilisation.

next: get a starving african child in there, then we'll talk some more!

If an african child dying of AIDS, in his last days, was put in a hospital bed and placed in a gallery, would that be art?

I really don't know about this.
It isn't creative
it isn't expression
I wouldn't be able to say it's art. Just neglect with a label.

thats horrible. i have will tell people at art school tomorrow about this. they will probably be appalled.

I agree.

I don't know how this was allowed.

...see, i don't know if i'm just being overly simplistic or semantic about this. it just seems like asking, "if i filmed an african child dying of AIDS, in his last days, would I have a film?"

and it's not just about the location, the fact that it physically takes place in a gallery. the art world is full of legitimizing institutions like galleries, museums, critics, patrons, grants, etc. kind of like when something is done by a professor at a university... it implies institutional support, even if it wasn't there explicitly.

that's why i think these are much more productive points to make:



art is a social structure: if there was no gallery willing to exhibit this and no potential patrons eager to hang out on opening night, this would not have happened. i'm not trying to say the artist wasn't responsible, he absolutely was; it was his 'concept.'

but it was legitimized as art before it happened; denying that is useless and distracts from more important questions.

So, what you're saying is that Art is a social construct, and by that definition, the act of starving the dog to death, even though carried out by the artist, has further ramifications than that? You're implying that the gallery and the patrons are just as responsible for the death of the dog as the artist is... Which is to say that they have become part of the artwork, an interactive social experiment on a large scale... They have become the statement that the artist wishes to make, that human beings are fine with suffering, as long as it's not theirs, and that most art poseurs are nothing more than elegant voyeurs, no better than the upskirt perverts that populate the cybermedia...

i'm not sure who is better between the two... but yes the elegant voyeurs are like the upskirt perverts in many ways...

So you're saying that even though it's horrible and brings unnessecary sadness, it's still a well executed [dog star man] and successful piece of art?

i read the article and i kinda see where the guy was coming from and his interpretation of his "art". that being said, and i'll be honest, i really can't stand animals. i fucking hate most of them, dogs especially, but that is kinda fucked up. but why didn't anyone who was @ the show say something or feed the fucking thing, if they were so worried about it?

You don't like animals? Wow. Are you emotionally deprived?

lol, nah they just get on my nerves. their dirty, they tear shit up, piss & shit every where, cost alot of money and they make alot of godamn noise. although i do like horses & some cats. i've just never liked animals and haven't ever really had any emotional attachment to one. my roomate use to have 6 cats & 6 dogs... when i moved in and helped her clean her house i told her she had to get rid of the lil bastards cause i couldn't stand living in a house that smelled like kitty shit & piss. she was all "i'm sad, i don't wanna get rid of them". so of course i had to take them to the SPCA to have them euthanized, which i had no problem w/. so now all my friends when they have to get rid of animals they call me to "take care of the situation". i get alot of shit for disliking animals... but at the same time it's not like i'm out joy killing the damn things either.

I can understand that you might get a lot of shit for having that particular outlook. But people ought to be sympathetic.

Are you talking about dogs or infants? :D:p

I'd really like to see Costes. Probably only once though. Not sure what circles you move in, but that is easily the most obscure reference I've ever seen on this board.

EDIT: Having said that, it could well be that loads of people have heard of him and I'm just a bit late in the game.

lol, i'm talking about animals, though i hear the same about kids. that's why i've decided to not have any. wouldn't want my demon seed going around polluting the innocence of earth. plus i wouldn't let em have a puppy... and what kinda parent doesn't buy his kid a puppy for x-mas?

The kinda parent that has turkey for x-mas instead of puppy?

I didnt have the patience to read through the whole thread but i will say this:

If it IS art then it has clearly worked... At least in this forum. Yes, I agree it's wrong but then i think that there are worse crimes out there that arent on display. (that said im trying to remember that *i think* german photographer that does like guy fisting each other for a bit of a high brow joke though completly failed.) This is the type of shit we should be talking about because it's a bit moronic to say it's just cruel and thats. I personally feel the world is pretty cruel as it is but nobody will ever focus on that kind of stuff.. or just start thinking.

For some stupid reason I always thought art was meant to be aesthetically pleasing

Then why do you listen to dischordant music like Sonic Youth? Aesthetics is part of it - but its not all of it. Besides aesthetics are a grey.... kind of like some one could say that that actually looks apealing to them. I know a lot of people who hate abstract art. It's a component but like not a reason.
I actually believe that art is meant to make you feel and that it's not just some superficial thing.

For some silly reason I thought music and art were two different things

...or we could just use the john hodgman criteria for art authentification: did a rich person pay a crazy amount of money for it?

I think they're the same in the scheme of it. The motivations and ultimatly what it's out to achieve... all of that kind of stuff are the same. And i find it strange you saying that because SY are known for blurring the lines between the visual and audeo art - im digressing though. I guess im that kind of person that follows the same rules or ideas for things. I'd explain that more but afraid i'd confuse it. I don't know though do you think if it were a painting of a dying dog during say the renaissance it'd be acceptable?

i'll give you guys the right to all your indignation, but what is funny (this needs to be pointed out) nobody is horrified at people dying of starvation.

i guess with the superabundance of food in developed countries people don't stop to think that food can be really hard to come by in some countries.





please, go ahead, clamor

Of course its abuse..but isnt the abuse part of what the artist is getting at?

exactly

Really? Nobody?

The indignation is not in the image of the poor dog displayed, is in the fact that the guy doing that claims it's art (and he's not the only one, considering his "piece" has been accepted by the exhibition's curators etc.-etc.).
Nobody ever said that starving children are "art".
Well, maybe Hitler or someone along those lines, but it does not count.
There are far worse thing in than a starving dog in this world, it just seems a bit useless to point this out in a thread where we are discussing about a precise and particular "exhibition", not about the world's problems.

If we (=the audience) accept this kind of cruelty as "art" next time on trial we'll have wife beaters claiming they're artist and that they just wanted to make a thought provoking piece. Yeah, cool, huh?
I know I'm bring this "too far" , but hope you get what I mean.

yes but people are missing the point of the exhibition because they are overly concerned with "animal rights" over "human rights".

by the look of it, that dog didn't have much of a chance in the streets either.

this reminds me of the abortion debate. sure good decent people are always ready to condemn abortions, but they won't do a thing to adopt or take care of unwanted children.

notice please im not saying this exhibit is pleasant in any shape of form. it's just that most rich people (i mean people who have a roof over their heads and hot meals whenever they wish) only see the dog and not what's beyond it.

Jesus Christ was nailed on the cross for the very same reason. People still care more about his death than 2000 years of innocent men executed.

Still nobody has addressed my point that the artist has made a name off of a dying dog.

i havent heard the squeals on this board. it's always rich-people concerns: how indie are my sneakers, is sonic youth selling out, etc. the tears of the spoiled.


ok... what kind of response are you looking for?

I understand what you mean (the human-animal rights part), but still, I can't see the point in letting the dog starve.
On the streets, yeah, it would have died pretty soon for sure, but say, he could have eaten something from the rubbish piles or wathever.
Bah, most likely I'm tired of guys doing "thought provoking" unnecessarily cruel things claiming they're artist. He could have fed the animal at night (when the exhibition was closed) and more people would have been able to see his "piece" rather than the one-day audience.
If his goal was to let it die and have media talk about that, I find it even stupider actually.
And I'm not really talking about animals right, but about this guy's actions.