Here’s how it went:
- Artist ties a dog to a tether on one corner of a room in a museum
- Artist places bowl of food just out of reach in other corner
- Over a period of days, dog dies of starvation.
I first read about this here, and I was livid; however, it turns out that what people believed was happening was not happening at all. In fact, the dog was well cared for, and was fed daily. The point of the exhibit was that the artist…
… intended the work to be a stunt to show how a starving dog suddenly becomes the centre of attention when it is in a gallery, but not when it is on the street. The work was intended to expose people for what they really are – “hyprocritical sheep”. He said that in order for the work to be valid, he and the gallery had to give the impression that the dog was genuinely starving to death and that it died.
In retrospect, he certainly did prove his point, didn’t he? There are two million signatures on the petition and nearly 73,000 members on the Starving Dogs is not art Facebook Group.
Clever, in a morbid kind of way.
dbrown
And wasn’t the artist really trying to prove that this applies more to our attitude towards all humans even more – especially since the exhibit can’t be done with a human child? Only a few million children die every year due to hunger (both starvation and malnutrition) and how do we really care? Dogs in the US get more and better attention than most humans do in the world – see street people that we all ignore, Iraqi children dying from lack of medical care, food and our christian efforts are mainly to bring them so-called democracy to their country; then, the issue of health care here (lack there of) and this and so much more makes understanding our true nature rather easy – as a nation that claims to be christian and believes in god, we are the worst hypocrites to ever walk the Earth. If there really was a god, he’d (she’d? (is that even a word?)) really be pissed and no doubt make us suffer by giving us a president that we deserve who would, using our own stupidity against us, harm us like we have so many others … wait, maybe there is a god?
bernarda
It’s only a dog. How many people have seen the numerous photos on starving children in Dafur and earlier cases and then responded which such outrage? For example, how many people responded to this?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Darfur/7117694039
Wilfred
But it’s still tormenting the animal. If I had seen this I would have released the dog and told the museum directors and ‘artist’ to fuck off.
99% of human beings are just monkeys with clothes on. The examples of the previous comments can be augmented by millions of others that point out the endless cruelty and hypocrisy of our species. It’s only when we are outraged by all cruelty whenever and to whomever it occurs that we may just take a collective step upward on the evolutionary ladder.
As long as we save our outrage for pet causes (ahem) we remain hypocrites.
TR
Art? Eh.
My kid could have done the same thing.
John S.
Michael, you really need to read these things a little bit more thoroughly (obviously not your strong suit).
It looks as if the whole thing was a hoax.
A disgusting hoax, but a hoax nonetheless.
Dennis - SGMM
A rescue dog is a much-loved member of our family. Humans intentionally bred dogs and cats away from their original nature, making them dependent on us. For some reason, the fact that the obligation is reciprocal just hasn’t sunk in for some. Yeah, there are other things to worry about in the grand scheme of things, still, I tend to think that callousness and indifference to suffering start with small things and grow to encompass the larger ones.
sparky
i for one am glad this was not filed under “art” as it ain’t.
Svensker
Um, Michael did say that the thing was a hoax. If I may quote a poster sometimes known as John “Please Call Me Mr. Pot” S:
“you really need to read these things a little bit more thoroughly (obviously not your strong suit)”
Xanthippas
Well, he certainly proved the point that people only care when it’s put in their faces. Unfortunately, that fact will be completely lost on those signatories who fail to understand the exhibit and, at some point in their lives, will almost assuredly drive by an abandoned dog starving in the street without even a second glance.
Btw “bernarda”, some of us find it quite possible to care about the suffering of all innocent creatures, whether they are human or non-human. Compassion is not exclusive.
Lavocat
Perhaps, next, we can have waterboarding exhibits and electrode-genitalia exhibits and naked, tethered prisoner exhibits and viscious-dog-on-handcuffed-man exhibits and wait for the hue and cry.
Oh, wait …
nathan
awesome social psychology experiment i think. also, love the comment from the monkey who said 99percent of people are just monkeys with clothes on, i take it he is the other 1 percent or something? also, i would have loved to watch the other guy who SAYS he would have thrown a fit and told peole to F off. dont know if he really would have, since most of these posts are in fantasy realm of altruism, but its all just talk i think.
JR
Old argument, but here is a classic view:
Art is not about making something “pretty,” art is about evoking some aspect of our world to discover something about ourselves. That is why art is found in literature, painting, music, sculpture, theatre … it is not to please, it is to instruct.
Though much popular art is done through emotionally engaging works, it does not have to be so. If it makes you think about the human condition and collective actions, it is touching the realm of art.
Wilfred
A bit Marxist, no? Since when is ‘modern’ art meant to have a didactic function?
Oh, and btw:
Ecce monkey – it was the same guy, me.
Antonius
I’m not sure the artist proved his thesis. What he may instead have proved is that people will try to change something they find repugnant if they’re able to fully understand the situation, and be confident they’re doing the right thing. The world presents complicated situations of moral ambiguity, and overwhelming numbers.
If I save one starving dog on the street, am I obligated to save them all? To make a career of it? Some folks will, and I support the choice. Other folks will make a career of saving starving children. But I think when faced with a situation of complexity (what, exactly is the answer in Darfur? Food drops? armed intervention? Giving to a charity?) people can throw up their hands and do nothing, since the right course of action isn’t clear.
When the right course is clear “unleash the dog, and tell the gallery owner and artist to fuck off” or hell, call the NYC ASPCA which will act in such cases, people are far more likely to act. “THIS”, they think, “I CAN CHANGE, DAMMIT. I may not be able to save those kids in Darfur, but this goddamn dog is going to eat.”
The artists may not have proved that people are hypocritical. He may have proved that when faced with a what people see as a solvable problem, they will try to solve it.
John S.
So he did. My mistake.
Xanthippas
That’s a thoughtful, and generous, interpretation. I’m sure there’s some truth to it and that probably is the case for some who viewed the exhibit, but I do find myself wondering how people who can find the time to sign an online petition to save a dog in an exhibit can’t find the time to sign an online petition supporting bills like one in California that would require dogs and cats be sterilized. Nobody’s asking anybody to pick up every dog they see in the street (and I didn’t mean to imply as much), but there is something of a disconnect there when people will spend billions on the health and well-being of their own dogs and cats, but very little on the safety of animals left to the streets.
Xoebe
Is it not hypocrisy if we ignore the starving dog in the art exhibit? Are those who ignore the starving dog in the art exhibit somehow “moral”?
Just above this post, Antonius has it right. Trying to solve the problems we think we actually can solve is not a moral failure – it’s the opposite.
The point of the art is well taken, but like a lot of “social commentary” art, it’s frankly just stupid. Immersing a cross in the artist’s urine does not somehow illustrate a moral failing of a people. It may not even be “bad” art. What it is though, is a lousy cheap shot by an an attention whore. Trolls exist in real life just the same way they do on message boards…or Fox News…
Antonius
Point taken, and agreed to. I do think some folks have a hard time abstracting the particular to the general. Saving an individual dog seems somehow more viscerally satisfying than attempting to save a whole population of abstract dogs who may or may not be suffering.
We are, of course, talking about people as much as dogs. Person to person, people are far more generous and understanding to one another than they are toward whole populations of the “other”, typified by the classic “he may be gay, but he’s all right”, while simultaneously holding a conviction against all gays (for example, only. Insert your own symbolic “other” here).
I submit this is not necessarily a problem of hypocrisy (although hypocrisy is at work as well). It’s a problem of an inability to generalize the particular, or more exactly, a limit on empathy.
In perhaps too anecdotal an incident, a friend on a mailing list railed against the “calumny” that the CIA had aided Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and how it probably wasn’t all that bad anyway. When my ex-wife privately informed him that Trujillo regime, he was “shocked and saddened” and surrendered the point.
When it becomes personal for some folks, they understand. Abstraction, however, can be difficult.
Antonius
Sorry, editor ate the most important part. Should read: “When my ex-wife informed him that members of her family had been executed by CIA-trained Trujillo operatives of the regime… etc.”
ParagonPark
Even if the dog was fed when no one was looking, the dog was still treated in an inhumane manner. Isn’t placing food “just out of reach” of a chained and hungry animal cruel? Even if after closing time the dog was given food, that does not negate the cruelty of the treatment during the gallery hours. I’m no anilmal psychologis but I have a hard time believing the dog was in on the gag and knew it was going to be just fine and get fed once the “the point” was made.
For my next show, I’m going to lock this “artist” in a gallery closet and make him listen to passing patrons praising the work of hacks that he knows is far more superficial and less meaningful than his “art.”
Linda
The most interesting part of this for me, is that while there were blog posts and boycotts, I haven’t seen any reports that anyone tried to FEED and WATER the dog, or even to call the ASPCA or whatever humane society there is in Costa Rico. I get that people relate to a situation when it is personalized, but to be faced with a “starving” dog, and then to decide the the effective thing to do is to go home an blog about it is quite diconcerting. Perhaps more happened here and it is just not coming out in the few reports we are seeing. If not, well this just bolsters the Milgram experiment results
wonkie
I’m wqith Linda. Howm amny people stomped straight off to the museum offices to complain? How many just gave the food bowl a little shove closer to the dog?
ThymeZone
The artist is a butthead. People are not idiots because they don’t save starving dogs on the street. There are a lot of rational reasons for that, few of them have anything to do with hypocrisy. I won’t approach a stray, sick looking dog on the street, I am not trained or equipped to handle a sick or confused animal. I won’t call Animal Control, they just kill them anyway. And frankly, I don’t see an animal like that more than maybe once a year.
My take away from this is that your artist is out to attract attention … to himself. Which is fine, but let’s not call it something else.
Dave_Violence
Holy shi’ite!
If each of those 73000 people each put in a dollar, there’d be $73,000 to care for abandoned pets!
dbrown
See, we Americans can only solve problems we fully understand and can fit into our tiny brains and that fits our moral view around us – that is, the argument fits into an eight-second sound bite; world problems are too complex – that dirty jew yelling about love? Nail him onto a cross: there, a simple solution that any American can understand. lets wash our hands of all the real issues (just can’t understand all the complex issues) and feed the fucking dog in the display and stear clear of the dog on the street because that is an animal and our hands might get dirty and you know, that really doesn’t solve the total problem of dogs going hunger – see, those dirty human children dying in ways and manners just too complex to solve with an easy, and clean solution; so its not our problem to deal with today – I have to get diner, jobs a bitch and I marriage one anyway and I got a lot on my plate.
Lets fucking go back to the moon – now that’s a problem that is easy to solve!
borehole
As someone knee-deep in animal welfare and stray rescue, I can say with some authority that this guy’s full of shit. As awful as people can be, when presented with a helpless animal in need, the vast majority of them will drop what they’re doing and try to help.
Hypocritical sheep? Kiss my ass. Go paint a bowl of fruit, you dick. Better yet, go volunteer at the ASPCA if you’re so fucking outraged.
Robert in BA
He should have used a veteran instead of a dog.
It would have made his same point.
Bibblesnæð
Well, I can see the “artist’s” point.
How many of us stop to help the stray dogs we see around? I try to, but, Lord, I could do a better job. And how many of us do enough to help the people we see who are living on the street? How many of us look the other way?
In a way, what he did makes me think of what the taliban did 7 or 8 years ago, when it blew up those hundred foot high Buddhas carved into cliffs in Afghanistan. The whole world went nuts, and it was right to go nuts over that, since it was nothing but wanton savagery tarted up to look like piety. I was pissed off myself. But I recall thinking how sad it was that so few of people were working themselves into a lather over the Buddhas seemed to have much to say about how the taliban treated its own people! A whole lot of Afghanis went the way of those two Buddhas, but it seemed like nobody knew about it, or cared.
I think what the artist did was ugly, but his point was to point out something ugly about us, and I don’t know if there was any way to do that that wasn’t ugly.
Katy
The point is, that cruelty is not acceptable, whether to animal or humans, we can’t do a lot about man’s cruelty to man, and it sickens, just the same as man’s cruelty to dumb animals sickens. If this ‘artist’ wants to draw attention to the plight of these street animals, maybe he could donate some of his, undoubtedly fat fee to their care and spay/castration, to reduce their numbers, and maybe, while h’s about it, he could draw attention to the child poverty in his own country too.
Why an outcry about one dog? well if we each help one of God’s creatures in our lifetime, it would make a big dent in the problem, one step at a time.
Gaby
I think this was really mean to do this to a dog. I really do hope it is just a hoax. It was a point that needed attention. I think the ‘artist’ proved it quite well, I suppose. I do not think that most people (other than me and my family who rescued a wild, pregnant, starving cat) would even bother to feed it or even look at it for that matter. And as long as the dog is being well fed and is still living it should be okay. Cruel, but Ok.
Just my Opinion. You can talk about me and disagree, but it is only a opinion.