Upon first glance, reading the group information, and giving the whole thing a brief check, I found myself to be just as outraged as anyone else in the group and quickly followed links to sign a petition to keep this artist, a Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, from returning to another art gallery with the same sort of 'art', as it were.
Besides generally feeling disgusted at the whole affair, what else could I do?
What I should have done is more research before throwing myself in with all the fuss. Never venture out uninformed. If you find yourself trying to argue the case, you'll usually wind up tasting your shoe. No one likes to put their foot in their mouth. The best way to do that is to actually know what you're talking about.
So in that spirit, now that I have a better idea of what I'm talking about, here's what I learned.
"Back in October 2007 Costa Rican artist Guillermo Habacuc Vargas captured a stray dog and chained it in a gallery without food and water with a big sign on the back wall made of dog biscuist stating "Eres Lo Que Lees" ("You Are What You Read"). According to the story, people watched the dog called Natividad perish in the gallery from lack of food and water.
Only, while it was intended that the gallery-goers believe that the dog subsequently died from being tied up and starved, this never happened.
The Human Society of the United States states that, "According to local animal welfare organizations, the dog was in a state of starvation when he was captured from the street for display in the exhibit. We have also been informed that the dog spent one day in the exhibit and later escaped the gallery."
Juanita Bermúdez, the art gallery director, commented, "It was untied all the time except for the three hours the exhibition laster and it was fed regularly with dog food Habacuc himself brought in."
It would seem that the information, while more than readily available to anyone seeking it out, isn't getting around to the people (myself included) who spared no more than a second of their time before making a judgement. Suffice it to say that being informed is always important, especially when making the decision to jump on a bandwagon. Or to let it pass by, as the situation dictates. As soon as I joined the Facebook group I was urged to sign a petition to keep Habacuc from (as I understand it) doing a similar exhibit at another art gallery.
I think that people who are initially upset probably have good intentions. I don't think they're stupid or over dramatic. But I do feel --and this is a lesson I myself re-learned from this-- that they are reacting based on emotion without making sure to fully understand the situation. An article I found while I was checking around summed it up better than I could:
"With the unlimited access to information comes the heavy responsibility of critical thinking. It’s not always easy to tell what is real and what is fabrication, and until someone invents bullshit-detecting glasses, everyone has to learn to do due diligence and research what they find on the internet thoroughly before starting wide reaching campaigns to ruin other people’s lives.
I'm happy to take that advice and hopefully react in a more rational way in the future. So what do we know? Guillermo Vargas Habacuc is, according to some, a cruel 'artist' who has no shame. To others, he is merely a man trying to make a point. Just something to mull over.
It is what it is.
-"Starving Dog as Art - Don't Believe Everything You Read". April 2008, Mad Morten. Copyright © Dabbler.ca
-"Outrage at 'Starvation' of a Stray Dog for Art". March 2008. The Observer. Copyright © guardian.co.uk
-"Is It True That a Central American Artist Used a Starving Dog in an Art Exhibit?" Humane Society International. Copyright © The Humane Society of the United States
2 comments:
it's interesting that the artist title "you are what you read" is the subject of your own confusion about the artist's work.
j frank thomas
--in response to the above comment,
Absolutely. That's one of the things that caught me - He just proved his point. I reacted to what I read, and I didn't bother checking out the legitimacy before acting on my emotions. Go figure, huh?
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