Killing a dog in the name of art .

i’ll play devil’s advocate.

where was all this outcry when rwanda was happening?

knowingly watching another living thing die is pretty messed up. to do this as art and put it into a gallery show is pretty out there.

would taking a picture of this dog (or starving human) and putting it into that same gallery be alright then? if the photographer did nothing to help feed said person (starving man crawling in rwanda comes to mind) and no one did anything to help this dog, then what truly is the difference? it didn’t happen in front of you at your fancy gala?

in my moral world, intention is everything. there are thousands of starving dogs on the planet, starving people too. lots of reasons for that i wish i could change and mostly cannot. but to intentionally cause suffering is in a different moral universe, one i do not care to visit. and to cause suffering as a form of ‘art’ is just wrong-headed, nihilistic, narcissistic, pseudo-radical crap … imho.

so the intention changes the outcome, david?

don’t get me wrong, i agree with not going out of ones way to hurt another living being, or even doing it by negligence or carelessness.

but are you serious? is the dog any less dead if the intentions weren’t there?

now there are many differences, but it’s interesting to see the reactions such an act drew from people to hurt the guy who did this, or respond to this particular incident. yet other issues don’t seem to raise the same amount of feedback…

doesn’t change the outcome, of course, but changes the responsibility.

so if his intentions were to highlight a major issue on neglected dogs and people’s indifference to helping them (even at a show) then maybe he succeeded? is that good then, because of his intentions? but if his intentions were to make a name for himself then it’s bad…honestly, what is the point?

i think intentions is less important than the outcome, seeing as the outcome was quite clearly conceived and in that case, the reality that no one helped the dog seems of paramount importance to me.

I wonder why get so ” deeply concerned” when animal abuse involved, and we have a diferent even comtemplative behaviour regarding our daily life/photogenic/human beings miseries. which we observ, or shot or do NOTHING. I am not in ANY WAY in favour of hurting neither a fly nor a flower, but..cón, What´s the point when we witness starving people dying next to our corners. We even spend thousands paying a fitness academy, ( yes a fitness academy for our fancy pet), or a beauty Salon, or whatever is invented by our consumist societies. Sorry Alexand David. This guy is not talking about starving animals, he´s talking about US.
Cheers,
Pupo

I’m always surprised when this society, in which bumfights and cage fighting for kids are routine entertainment, is shocked and horrified by one starving dog, stupid art or not.

All valid points here.
You make me think.
You are write Pupo he is talking about us.
He is bringing the “starvation ” to another scenario . An scenario (even a few blocks away )where people get shocked and irritated with things that happen all the time outside their museum walls. . But he did it on purpose confining the dog to a corner while there was food hanging from the wall. That is the part I dont understand. Give a little dignity to that animal. And please dont call that ART.
He has created a huge “awareness” with this an I’ll give him that , but this not the way to do it. Even if that was his intention like mustafah is saying, that is not the way to do it.
What is next a Sierra Leone’s rebel chopping hands at the Guggenheim

we feel for the dog because it is unequivocally innocent. like a child. of course, we should feel that for everyone else as well but emotionally its a tall order. compassion fatigue. yes, the truly sick thing is all the poseurs standing around drinking wine and no one thinks to intervene and free the dog. all guilty.

and yes, i am sure the ‘artist’ thinks he’s talking about ‘us’ but this is not the way to say it. its a slippery slope. next he’s going to ritually rape a 3 year old to ‘draw attention’ to child abuse ???

alex, so let’s have pictures instead?

are they not reality too? is having those images up okay because the people inside them are not physically present??

and what way IS the way to do it? i find this all quite ridiculous, but cannot help to agree with Stupid (to think!). if this is what it takes to bring attention to these events and effect change, then gosh, maybe this wanker is on to something.

Alex…
Sierra Leone..you could bet they would. I get your point on the dog, and i do not agree on it NEITHER ON PEOPLE PEACEFULLY observing it, but on the other hand art is not alwais to let you “comfortable”.
Running now,
Pupo

mustafah, if i take a picture of a starving dog, i am not responsible for its condition, i am only recording it. i did not puposefully starve it – that’s what i meant by intention. better, of course, is to take the picture and then to feed the dog.

David?!.....Road to ” hell” is made of “good” intentions. Tha´s is why we peacefuly obsev and “recor” starving people around us, just because we did not purposefully starve them..Ummm….....classic

david: great point. and i agree.

better yet to take the picture and feed the human.

some thing have to be documented in order for history to recognize their existence and i believe in the importance of photographer’s in this role, lest those with plans of their own craft a new history. in this respect, i think there is a undeniable necessity for the existence of the modern photojournalist/documentary photographer.

if one can agree on that basic point, than that negates your argument quite cleanly, pupo.

i do no argue for the starvation of the dog, but merely the type of response it garners and in what means the message is conveyed that dictates acceptability.

there are two things here Mustafah, 1-” a staving dog”...feeding it later?, ok, 2-we are not responsible for it….ummm

Yes, we are on many ways.

I really havt to run, back later maybe saying why

What I think David is trying to say, please corect me if I’m wrong, is that to take an animal that, was healthy, and to pourposly starve it to death is different that observing and recording an already starving dog. I agree.

“truly sick thing is all the poseurs standing around drinking wine and no one thinks to intervene and free the dog. all guilty.” – Very true.

excuse me pupo, i’m talking about dogs. and the moral difference between taking a picture of a starving dog for the purpose of highlighting the issue of hunger – and INTENTIONALLY setting out to starve a dog to death for whatever purpose. to me, these things are morally fundamentally different.

i think you are willfully distorting, or willfully misunderstanding, what i wrote.

but if you genuinely do feel ‘responsible’ for every starving dog you see, you are probably a saint and certainly a better man than i. if you’re going to tell me that ‘i am my brother’s keeper’ and ‘no man is an island’ then you are pushing at an open door – at least in theory. in practice it’s much more difficult. unless you’re a saint…

pupo, you’ve got me flustered and anticipating. i had to walk around the room for a while with my hands on my hips just to catch my breath.

“This wanker is on to something” you are so right because this guy is making us write and debate ha ha ha ha.
but to answer your questions . I have no idea which is the right way to do it. But I am sure (VERY sure) this is not the way.
I am also sure starving dogs wont end today or ever as long as there are poor people in this world. Pupo and myself leave in countries where you see hundreds of this animals everyday! There is nothing you can do . Helping perhaps one.And if you had plenty of money I am sure you will spending it first on hundreds of thousands of poor people with big necessities.
I am beginning to think this”artist” isnt at all interested on starving dogs. An stupid excuse to get attention.
I agree that pictures are not as powerful as seeing a living thing die on purpose , but that is what we have and we better do a better job.
” art is not alwais to let you “comfortable”” 101% agree with you Pupo. But that is not art . It is entertainment and a bad one.

Pupo and Mustafah come’on!
We take pictures of starving human beeing or animals cause we think other people have to know what we witnessed… of course the best thing is to help tham but unfortunately for a photographer alone is impossible to help millions of people so we take the picture and we hope that to “give tham a voice” it may be a bit useful…
Than, I know there may be people speculating on who is soffering… I met photographers who are disappointed when they go into a “hot” area and nothing bad happen but i also know others who are involved on helping the community in which they are working…
Anycase it is an other discussion… photographers do not kill or harm people or animals to take their pictures! They are just witness. Sometimes with good motivations some time with bad… but just witness.
This idea to starve to dead a dog in a gallery and to call it “art” is something horrible… in my country you will not be allow to do it. To mistreat animals is illegal, even in the case you are allow to kill tham (as of course farmers…) if somebody see you provoking tham suffering in pourpose and with no reason you are in truble… Animals are still living beeings, I do agree that before giving money to some “save the animals” associations we are better to worries about human beeings but to mistreat tham in pourpose is something i do not really understand…

This is not excusable under any premise. It is not a conceptual argument..where there is suffering that you can alleviate, you do.

May All Beings Everywhere Be Happy and Free, and May Our Thoughts, Words, and Actions Help To Bring About Such a Place.

THIS IS FUCKING MONSTROUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE GUY SHOULD BE ARRESTED ON TORTURE CHARGES!

HE WOULD IF HAD DONE THE SAME THING TO A HUMAN BEING WOULD HE NOT?

THERE IS NO POINT TO THIS WHAT-SO-EVER

NO DISCUSSION- HE KILLED A SENTIENT BEING WHICH MAKES HIM JUST AS MUCH A MURDERER AS WAR MONGERS LIKE BUSH OR
COMMON CRIMINALS>

THE PERSON SHOULD BE JAILED- END OF STORY.

WHY NOT ASK JAMES NACHTWEY FOR HIS OPINION ON THIS ATROCITY- I AM SURE HE COULD SET YOU STRAIGHT ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF THIS INHUMANE SOCIOPATHIC AND VILE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Might be a stupid suggestion but given all those caps, you may wish to channel your energy… http://www.dogmeattrade.com/library_articles/international_dmt.html

The Bodhisattva Vow

The passions of delusion are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them all at once.

The number of beings is endless. I vow to help save them all.

The Truth cannot be told. I vow to tell it.

The Way which cannot be followed is unattainable. I vow to attain it.

I told Marina and Dima about this “exhibition” and showed Marina the photographs….

It is positively out of Clockwork Orange…..I do not know by whom I am more angered: the young “clever” artist, the gallery, the idiots mulling around cleverly talking about the event (i’d love to know why wasnt there one fucking artist in that place that had the real genius to set that creature free, or rather, to chain themselves instead to the dog’s leash and offer to starve to death if that dog were allowed to starve)...for fuck’s sake, at least Chris Burden shot HIMSELF, at least Marina ABRAMOVIC cut herself, Nauman, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, Gina Pane, AND Joseph Beuys (ONE OF MY HEROS!) tortured themselves in the act of explaining that we torture, we hurt and stand buy…Beuys held onto a rabbit which saved him frm death during WWII, he understood, more than ANY ARTIST I KNOW: if not for our NECESSARY AND ETERNAL relationship with living, sentient animals, we would be torturers....

the idea that this is a conceptual representation of our collective (society) indifference to the starvation of animals and people is simply ludicrous (at best) and heroically catastrophic at worst…as an attempt (if that was his attempt) to highlight that society’s indifference to starving animals (dogs) or starving children, he has confused the act of shock to call attention and his own culpability. Animals (and people) die each day because of our indifference, our ignorance, our numbed lives (and often we’ve been bread upon a saturation of life that for our own pyschic and existential protection, we’ve walled ourselves up), but this is not, in fact, an act to highlight human indifference as an expository argument…though, ironically, it highlights the human NUMBNESS to real suffering: those people are dead, just as the jailors in the camps were dead, just as most of us are dead because we have so exercised ourselves into believing that an ‘IDEA’ transcends the ‘ACTUALITY’ of the events….

we are lost. the analogy about raping a child is absolutely no different. this dog, found on the street, was surely going to die because of the dire life that it had been given (of which a human was responsible, for the dog was born into that city and lived on the streets because of humans to begin with) and that alone is tragic; however, that this artist took that and than used this creatures suffering to torture it more (to spectacularize and catastrophalize her/his impoverishment in front of others) and in fact, sentence it to die (this dog, remember, MIGHT STILL HAVE BEEN RESCUED) slow and tortured death for his own aggrandizement, is a clear example of how distraught and forlorn we really are…

the real “superman” doesn’t kill to transcend society’s abject morals, but if he objects to their abject thinking, he kills himself.

Pupo, my dear friend, while this may be “art” (i use this word as a description of an act, not as the word to “enlighten”), it is also something infinitely more heinous: it is murder.

Murder may indeed be deemed as art by some (the skins of jews used for lamp shades, the gold of the teeth burned to liquid for coin, the hair shorn for collared clothes), but murder is still, above all, a violation of the primary imperative of life: to survive.

This act, while maybe “human” (my digust grows nearly each day), this act is not “cosmological”

It is a violation of everything that living stands for, and art, even in the celebration of death, was something we once used to speak of that in order TO SURVIVE as a species: our stories.

I only fucking wish i had been at that gallery,....that dog would have come home with us….

Thankyou Erica for bringing me back to sanity.

But this monstrosity in the name of ‘Art’? The Holy Cow, the Grail to so many aspirant would be’s?

This act was instructed by the so called ‘Artist’ It was not as a circumstance of poverty or survival, it was ordered by a middle class pretentious F&^%wit to occur in that Holy of Holy’s ‘The Art Gallery’ as a demonstration of what? Control, by the ‘artist’ to the audience, ‘shame’, the use of ‘mob mentality’

A sentient being died as a result. The ‘artist’ should be prosecuted. Or would that only have happened if it was a small child?

Stupid, you are more annoying than I have words to describe. Your vacuity exceeds your inanity and your anonymity is boring. You know nothing about me or you would not have made such an uninformed or patronizing statement as you just have. Go bother someone else.

ERICA:

EXACTLY!

(period!)

hugs
bob

Stupid… Thanks for the link. Let’s hear it for the Olympics!

UPDATE.
I have been doing some research on this because I couldn’t believe it . Apparently the dog scape but it is not confirm .
http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/vargas.asp

In any case what is happening in China is real . Thanks for he link “Stupid”.

If the dog (as now reported above) was in fact taken care of (fed at night) and then lived (taken away, taken in by someone: how about the artist?), and the artist (all along) knew that the dog would not die, then he accomplished exactly his idea (the people standing around and that not one fucking person tried to rescue that dog)....

let us hope that that happened, ooooooorrrrr, that it was an April fools joke (the pics, the “exhibition”)...

i can live with being made a fool….i’ll take that knowing that it was part of the point, ...let us hope that that is what happened…when i get back, i’ll see if through our gallery more info can be found…

but, it is real REAL in china…

look at LS member sean gallagher’s recent story on chinese zoos: heart breaking…i cant look at the picture of the dog in the lion’s cage….

http://www.gallagher-photo.com/main.php

b

this is why, as an “artist” myself, i can barely stand to talk to other artists, especially (forgive me) young one: read here…pay attention to Daniel…i only hope he’s being ironic and taking my sorry 40 year old old-man ass to show ;))

http://claire-lumiere.livejournal.com/52855.html

Bobsky…I sincerely hope you are correct in saying this was some kind of aesthetic illusion. Maybe in the vein of the Andre Serrano “Piss Christ” photo that worked up so many people. If not, this so called “artist” should be tied up and starved.

My suggestion, as usual, was meant honestly, without any intention to patronize. It was in fact meant to help. Aimless anger is unproductive. Channeling it is productive. It is absolutely astonishing to me what fiction of their own some choose to read into my stupid posts.

Stupid: i think people understand that (unless i missed a post that got deleted)...the horror show in china about animals is extraordinary: there are places in S.china where dogs, chickens, cats and other animals are pushed down into a chute for lions/tigers to devour…as a game, since their huntings instincts have been so denutered, that’s its ridiculous…there are other places where the “guests” are invited to throw live chickens into a pen to provoke..and on and on…channeling is necessary :))..by the way, the only fiction i, personally, have ever read into your stupid posts is that you are “stupid” ;)))))..

Greg: :))..soon, we’ll meet (spring)...anyway, i hope so…will have my gallery take a look, since they get all kinds of stuff from international folks and may be able to figure it out….i hope to god this was just an act of subterfuge on his part and that the real welfare of the dog was really disguised (and that the dog now is comfortably wagging his tail)...but, i see lots of shit in the art world that leaves me sad and wearied, believe me ;))...

running off now

b

Seems you did miss something. That’s the only reason I opened my mouth again.

“Stupid, you are more annoying than I have words to describe. Your vacuity exceeds your inanity and your anonymity is boring. You know nothing about me or you would not have made such an uninformed or patronizing statement as you just have. Go bother someone else. “

by lisa hogben | 04 Apr 2008 01:04 | sydney, Australia |

O….

I know Lisa and most likely she was just, like all of us, so upset that such an idiocy like this (the exhibit involving the death of the dog) could have been condoned (the more i think, the more i think it was a conceptual stunt and this artist MUST have let the dog survive and have taken care of him/her during and after) could exhist that she saw your connection to china as a tease….listen, I can also be a total hothead when im worked up (ask my wife: she’s the only “smart” one in my family) ;)), so i’m guessing it was just a misreading and the post was probably deleted when it was realized you were being stupidly sincere…

believe me i get it…im going to stupidly stand up in public and say that Lisa is a great person and actually a fuck’s more thoughtful than 99% of the people i meet, so i wouldnt take it personally…you should have seen what folks used to write about me when i first joined ls, almost 3 years ago ;))...and I wasn’t anonymous…

i once told someone to “f off” when they were actually (face to face) trying to tell me how much they respected my family when they drunkenly told me that “at ls, you look like such a blowhard, fullofhimself little shit” (truth)...so, i wouldnt get too upset ;))

ok, im running
b

Water under the stupid bridge. Bottom line, the story is not at all as originally presented above. It’s more like this:

http://internetservices.readingeagle.com/blog/paws/archives/2007/11/post_4.html

often we should look to the structure and not the minute to see what truly warrants dialogue.

why are those animals being kept in zoos anyhow? better, why would this artist see an art gallery as a viable venue to communicate this point? after all, the magazine or newspaper is seen as the “appropriate” areas to report abuses.

perhaps the worlds focus is easily stirred by sensationalism and this stunt just fed the beast the taste it prefers…and said something about us…and how the old venues are no longer seen as a critical path of communication in this new hyper-technological age.

Stupid:

thanks for the link…that makes more sense…and that’s what i suspect after writing my initial comments and trying to read all the shit in spanish…if the intent was to use the dog and keep it fed (save it), kudos, especially with all the “death” threats…totally get that and totally support it, ‘cause it raises the hypocricy of all….just believing it did happen that way and not as originally reported around the blogosphere..

Mustafah: :))...terrific point…though often, the distinction between venues/vehicles of communication (press, books, reporting) and venues of “exhibition” are blurred, ‘cause who and where can we rely upon to shift through the facts…one thing about the web, it just reinforces that frightening orientation: speed over thoughtful dialogue/understanding, more than ever…

the artist probably saw this, cause the gallery world is (by its own design) is hyper-linked to tunnels of communication (around the globe): hotlinked in ways that still the old world is not…for both good and ill….the irony, i think about all this is that at a forum like LS, the story goes from outrage and anger to thoughtful investigation pretty quickly…actually more quickly than the blogospher, which disseminates exponentially as its modus operandi: e pluribus SPREAD ;))...

wild ride, o brave new world…just wait to we’re old f*cks…what then ;))

now, definitely finish a project then to bad

‘night ls :))

b

I meant “finish a project and then to bed” ;))

b

Alex, Mustafah:

Let be clear about something I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE IDEA OF STARVING A DOG, OR WHATEVER ANIMAL TO DEATH IN THE NAME OF “art” but to the level of concern it takes that a lot of times is A LOT bigger than when we talk about humans.
David,I am a human being with ALL DEFECTS AND SINS it imply.Tomorow, ´cause is late here and I am tired and had a busy day I´ll answer your points and make myself clear and you could save the some irony and know me and my point of view a little bit more, maybe on the bigger post I´d ever think to write here on LS.

Bro Bob, as I said I´ll writte tomorrow, and…I think you are one of the only poeople here who knows how I think about certain aspect of life and society.
Good night to all,
Pupo

if the dog was being fed and let live, it puts a whole different slant on it. shifts my interest to the gallery visitors and i’d be curious to know what they thought was happening, how much they knew.

their apparent passivity reminds me a bit of the milgram experiment, where psychology students were told to administer electric shocks to other participants. they obeyed instructions and continued to turn up the voltage even though they could hear screams on the other side of the screen (by actors, of course).

in the name of science and authority, ordinary moral judgment was suspended. here we see it suspended in the name of art…

btw pupo, i wasn’t being ironic – some people ARE saints and if you are one i’ll be the first to applaud!

best regards, d

pupo, if you read my posts you’ll see that i try to argue that very point concerning the level of outrage for a dog and sometimes not for fellow humans.

Mustafah

I think the scenario with this dog,as it was presented in the original post, and the apparent depravity it projected
really only served as a focus point for the thousands of cases of brutality animals endure,daily,at the hands of the
supposedly more advanced human. It was served up to us on a platter.

I don’t feel the ‘outrage’ many expressed was out of proportion and,in fact,if there wasn’t outrage that,in my opinion,
would even bode worse for mankind,such that it is. The heat will subside and we all will go passively on our way.

A certain group of passionate,and concerned,individuals will continue to advocate on behalf of the suffering and
underprivilleged people of the planet and another group will be advocates for those animals whose lives are a living hell as the result of human acts
I don’t see why we need to pit one groups convictions against the other. There’s more than enough misery to go around.

mark, there’s “more than enough” of a lot of things to go around. my scale of importance may be different then, say, yours or an animal activists. and while i don’t condone any type of cruel treatment of animals, i can’t piss away my time trying to campaign on their behalf when there are people of my own species being oppressed or subjugated or starved or hurt in some capacity.

you may, but i won’t.

this is not to say we should ignore these issues or not attempt to stop negative actions towards animals, but i just imagine the level of focus all this attracts and look at what is going on in other areas of the world. i just can’t wrap my head around that.

god lightstalkers is slow sometimes.

Oops,S$#¨x%x!

I was writing a huge post and it simply…..Dissapear. I´ll try again later. Mustafah. I got your point from the begining and I agree on your perspective (did you get mine on first two posts, where I also said:”...I am not in ANY WAY in favour of hurting neither a fly nor a flower, but..cón, What´s the point when we witness starving people dying next to our corners.”?). And I must add that neither ” enjoy” this kind of “art performance”, even if the dog was bein fed unofficialy.

David, no harm taken on it. But I must say I´m not a saint, not better, nor worse. do I feel responsable in many ways as part of a passive society which do A LOT less than it shoud in favour of others. Yeap. I´ll say later,
Cheers,
Pupo

Stupid’s link reminded me of a picture I took recently. It’s at: http://www.mscottbrauer.com/index.php?showimage=192 . Haven’t been to a dog farm, but the markets in China can be horrific sometimes. There was a still-breathing dog with its blood draining in the background, but I got chased away pretty quickly and couldn’t get the shot.

Thanks again for the link, Stupid.

A damn good shot you made there, if I stupidly say so myself. Thanks, nothing changing until people see.

And any one of these could have been the original subject of this thread: http://www.mscottbrauer.com/index.php?showimage=184

A friend from Central America asked me: if it was Paris, Berlin, London, NY would people have been so quick to believe that a dog could be starved for Art in a gallery exhibition? Layers upon layers!

David, interesting – that Stanley-Milgram experiment came to my mind too!

Interesting point Mustafah – re” old venues” maybe that is why MSF are doing their refugee camp tours, because the old venues are failing to elicit the necessary response for positive action. Not sure I agree with “sensationalism” just think people find it painful, and difficult to impossible to wrap their heads around reality – “Humankind cannot bear very much reality” T.S.Eliot. But maybe it’s less about “old venues” than for photojournalism to keep discovering new ways to “see”, approach things, or seeing, understanding, presenting things with a wider vision, after all the photographer does decide location, crop, angle, lens, focus & b/w or color.

good point, angela. but i think the shifting paradigm in presentation is a signal that it takes more to affect people than before. that said, we need to evolve and take advantage of these methods in order to make our message and our argument better heard, understood, and received.

what passed ten years ago doesn’t always work these days. and if it does, it’s with a very select few who have been around quite a bit. the old venues truly are that: old. new ones are rising up, and not always from the ashes of the old: the old are evolving to.

not to hijack this thread towards the shift in our industry, but i think it’s realistic to look at it when discussing the impact this exhibit had on people and how they were prompted to take action. i’m not afraid to say i wish to harness this level of impact when it comes to reaching people and making them think. my methods are completely different, but i will not prop myself on a platform and act all high and mighty: i want to make people think, to feel something, to act. i didn’t get into this job for the money, that’s for damn sure.

sick world.