THE STORY:
In 2007, the ‘artist’ Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery and began starving him to death.
For several days, the ‘artist’ and the visitors of the exhibition watched, emotionless, the shameful ‘masterpiece’ based on the dog’s agony, until eventually he died.
Does THIS sound like art to you?
But this is not all… the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of Central America decided that the ‘installation’ WAS actually art, so Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the Biennial of 2008.
Let’s STOP HIM!!!!! Sign the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.html
Here is another petition that is 2 million signatures strong. Please feel free to sign it as well:
http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html
Please do it. It’s free of charge, there is no need to register, and it will only take 1 minute to save the life of an innocent creature.
AND, for those of you saying “This is all a hoax, etc,” here is a direct quote FROM THE ‘ARTIST’ himself!:
“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. 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 stray dogs: sooner or later they die or are killed.”
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To be fair (with lots of comments from Costa Ricans):
In his defence, the artist has claimed that what he was attempting to prove was that those who saw the suffering of the dog just walked on by and that if it had been left on the street to die, no-one would have even known of its existence.
It has also been reported that the dog did not die but escaped, and that it had been fed by Vargas and was only tied up during the gallery opening times. It has not been possible to confirm this.
The Managua exhibition attracted worldwide attention and many people believe it to have been an act of cruelty rather than art. A petition has been started in an attempt to prevent Habacuc’s involvement in the 2008 Biennial and from repeating the spectacle.
If you would like to sign the petition, visit: http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.html
UPDATE:
After pressure from WSPA, the Honduras AHPRA and the public, the
Biennial organizers have agreed not only to make AHPRA official
observers but also to include new competition rules that prohibit the
abuse of animals.
While we are satisfied that no-one will be able
to abuse animals in the name of art during this forthcoming exhibition,
stronger laws need to be in place that prohibit animal cruelty. WSPA
and member society UCC are currently supporting a campaign, led by the
Commission for Natural Resources and Environment of the Nicaraguan
Assembly, calling for legislation to protect animals in Nicaragua.
You too can support the protection of animals worldwide by signing the
Animals Matter to Me petition. This calls for a Universal Declaration
on Animal Welfare, an internationally accepted set of principles about
the treatment of animals that would encourage countries to improve
their legislation.
Petition — http://www.wspa-usa.org/pages/1706_animals_matter.cfm?redirect=yes
–from World Society for Protection of Animals (http://www.wspa-usa.org/pages/2341_no_excuses_for_cruelty.cfm)
Realize what this piece achieved… no one gives a damn about thousands of starving stray dogs in the streets, but everyone is appalled by one starving dog in a gallery. The general reaction has proven Guillermo’s point. He is not a horrible person. He brought worldwide attention to a big problem. It is OUR fault for focusing our attention on the artwork itself rather than the concept it was trying to get across. We should be taking a deeper look at ourselves. A lot of action going into one mistreated dog, not a whole lot going into the myriad of others…Condemning this piece and starting online petitions against this piece is no more proactive than the people who visited the exhibit and did nothing. Silly, silly world.