Apr

11

“Starving Dog” is not art.

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In 2007 a Costa Rican artist named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, as an installation piece, took a dog from the street, tied it to a short rope across a gallery from a bowl of food and allowed it to starve to death while the general public looked on.

As a reward for his act of sadism, he was issued a spot in the prestigious Central American Biennial Exhibition 2008 in Honduras.

In the words of the artist (translated courtesy of the interwebs):

I knew the dog died on the following day from lack of food. During the inauguration, I knew that the dog was persecuted in the evening between the houses of aluminum and cardboard in a district of Managua. 5 children who helped to capture the dog received 10 bonds of córdobas for their assistance. During the exhibition some people requested the freedom of the small dog, which the artist refused. The name of the dog was Natividad, and I let him die of hunger in the sight of everyone, as if the death of a poor dog was a shameless media show in which nobody does anything but to applaud or to watch disturbed. In the place that the dog was exposed remain a metal cable and a cord. The dog was extremely ill and did not want to eat, so in natural surroundings it would have died anyway; thus they are all poor dogs: sooner or later they die or are killed.

I believe that freedom of speech, especially in the cultural world, is invaluable to a modern society. But I also strongly believe that using an unknowing, unwilling and defenseless model in the work was cruel and can’t be allowed. A petition that says the same is here: http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html.

After you finish reading this, go and play with your pet. Winston and I are about to go on an extra-long adventure.