Is This Art? Or Animal Abuse? Animal And Dog Lovers Be Warned…
October 18th, 2007 | by Ginnie | (Visited 606,780 times)Related Animal Abuse Stories On The GinBlog:
- US Soldiers Throwing Puppies Off Cliffs and Shooting Dogs
- Shocking Images of Chinese and Philippine Horse Fighting - Equestrians and Animal Lovers Beware…
Recent Updates To This Story:
- From Raven of HelpingAnimals.com (4/24/08):
I wrote to PETA about this, and this is their response:
Many stories-sometimes conflicting-have been circulating about these events, and it has been difficult to verify the reports that we’ve received.
Because the initial exhibit with the dog took place in Nicaragua, which has no cruelty-to-animals laws, Vargas cannot be charged with a crime at this time.Our investigations department is aware that Vargas will participate in a show in Honduras in November. It has been reported that a Honduran group, the Honduras Association for the Protection of Animals and their
Environment (AHPRA), has secured the event organizers’ word that the event rules will prohibit animal abuse. PETA’s caseworkers are monitoring this situation and will take further action if we get word that Vargas plans to repeat the exhibit with the dog. People often
commit heinous acts in a bid to gain attention, so it is important to refrain from encouraging them by giving them the attention that they clearly crave. For more thoughts on this issue, please visit
http://blog.PETA.org/archives/2008/04/artist_starving.php.Exactly what happened at the exhibition in Nicaragua last year may be uncertain, but it is clear that millions of homeless animals are at risk of starvation, disease, violence and death in our own communities right now. To learn more about things you can do to make a difference for these animals, visit http://www.HelpingAnimals.com
- NBC10 Webisode Video on Vargas (Thanks Jim!)
This is one of those things you come across and just have to blink a couple times and ask, “is this real?”. In fact it is.
Guillermo Habacuc Vargas had 2 children catch this dog. He paid the kids for this. He then chained the dog and used the dog as “art”. He told everyone not to feed this dog. The dog died in the gallery. He calls himself an artist. I call him an animal abuser. In that event, (in which the dog died) he was chosen to represent his country in the “Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008″.
There is a petition to ban him from this event, which you can visit by clicking this link.
After reading that and digging around, I found this site with a little more information on the incident:
A Costa Rican artist found himself in hot water with the animal protection people in his home country after using a starving, sick street dog as part of an exposition in Managua, Nicaragua, in August. Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas allegedly found the dog tied up on a street corner in a poor Nicaragua barrio and brought it to the showing. He tied the dog, according to furious animal lovers, in a corner of the salon where it died.
Here is another link about the incident as well, although it’s in another language and I’ve been unable to translate it thus far.
There will always be cultural boundaries and different definitions of what is defined as “art”, but I’ve always maintained that any sort of suffering is pointless. Especially when something like this was preventable.
If this post strikes you, here are a few links to do something about other dogs stuck in terrible conditions:
Save A Dog - Foster A Dog, Save A Life
Can We Help You Keep Your Pet - Abused Dogs
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June 8th, 2009 at 12:51 am
That is not fucking art! That is so discusting! How could anyone walk into an art studio and think that not feeding a dog or even any animal is art? Some people have a sick mind!
March 24th, 2009 at 4:37 am
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March 11th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I think what Guillermo Habacuc Vargas has done is appauling. I appreciate that he may have wanted to show the plight of street dogs and their suffering. He has created a lot of debate and maybe has increased the number of donations and help available to them. However, I think showing deliberately showing this dog chained up in an art gallery does not allow the animal any dignity; which I’m sure he will argue that the animal had no dignity on the streets but the dog remained free from public viewing. I am amazed that Vargas chose not to feed and better the dog, maybe a better way of dealing with his plight would be to attract the public to improving quality of life through simple acts of kindness!
At what point do we say that art crosses over to absolute indecency? Do we have to remind Vargas that there are plenty of starving children in the world, that malaria is one of the biggest killers, that AIDS victims in Africa need help, that soldiers lie dying!! I think art at this point needs to be a little more considerate and a little less controversial. There are plenty of things that I would like to change about the world, animal cruelty being one of the top on my list. Small acts of kindness that go un-noticed make a large difference, artists like Vargas need to take note of this and realise that creating outrage may highlight street dogs suffering but maybe to be a better human being he should have chosen to do this in a more positive light. I shall not be visiting his exhibitions and would urge the galleries not to display his work or support this dark form of “art” at the expense of living creatures.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Your petty, politicized “philosophy” of art is what makes people with real artistic talent choose careers as short-order cooks. Your view from the sewers has made toilets at art colleges and museums back up and overflow. Now look what you’ve done! The halls of artistic institutions are coated in sewage and if it’s not shit, it’s not fit to exhibit. You’ve got one side of the coin and Anonymous Artist has the other, and you’ve both pulled so hard that the nothing in between you has escaped and now, voila, art has been proven worthless to normal human beings looking on. Congratulations. Go to a local gallery and paint moustaches on all of the paintings to celebrate your worthlessness.
March 7th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
What the fuck?! What the hell is this guy’s problem?! Someone should tie up this fucking bastard and not give him any care at all! Let’s see how he likes it!! And what the hell is wrong with the people who WATCHED this happen?! Why didn’t you untie the poor creature and feed it? Are you all fucking stupid or something? I mean, come on! I can’t believe you just watched the poor thing starve to death! You people call that art? Are you really that heartless? I hope the guy that did this ends up starving to death and burns in hell for the rest of eternity. And all the people that watched the poor dog starve to death without trying to do anything… I don’t even know what to say to you people. How could you possibly watch that and not try to do anything? Would you like to starve to death while other people stared at you without trying to help? You’re all just as bad as the man who did that. Fucking bastards.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:08 am
This “artist” Guillermo Habacuc, said that sadism is also a form of Art. How sick and cruel from him. If that is so, I suggest him, for the next Art Bienal, to be tied up by the genitals, and let him starve, people going by, making photos, and NOBODY trying to save him. Just like they did with that poor dog. And , of course,with a band on his mouth, so he can,t call or speak for pity, just like the dog as well. He (the dog) couldn,t tell anybody how much he was suffering. or you think that because they can,t express with words, they don,t feel. That,s why he should try his own “Art”. I wonder if he would feel so artistic about it.
He should NEVER be allowed to exhibit again in his life. This world is full of cruelty and sadism, it is a crime, to support those horrible and destructive forces, and even worse, justifying it in the name of Art.
By the way, I AM an artist, and I DO love animals.
We are their voices, let,s raise it, against human cruelty, please, everybody should do it, don,t look the other way.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“You do art for yourself, you don’t do it for others” You are whats wrong with our art community today. That’s called art therapy. It doesn’t belong in public. I would love to sit in a critique with you, so that I could help you understand that you are an idiot. Art is communication. A simple installation might communicate complex ideas, concepts, or questions. This Vargas piece is an example of this. Look at the dialogue he’s created. Its not a simple piece. Were the efforts of everything like Duchamp, Klein, Manzoni, Johns, Giocometti, wasted on you? Are you stuck, with your own work, trying to figure out things that were done (better than you will ever do them) hundreds of years ago? Vargas has made a fool out of all of you who don’t appreciate this piece. The dog didn’t die in the gallery. Vargas manipulated his audience the way a painter manipulates paint. He owns this discussion. This is a Post-Duchamp piece, sorry for those of you who are to stubborn or ignorant to comprehend that. If you don’t stop and consider the work, you don’t deserve to comment on it.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:14 am
Huh. I see what Vargas was trying to show us. If not, then his cruel act has a side effect of showing the world animal cruelty that we sit back and ignore.
I see stray dogs. What do we do?”Shoo! Get away!” Is that not animal cruelty in itself? Why should we tell the domesticated animal to get away, when we can clearly get food and shelter for it? Why shoo the dog away and condemn it to further starvation? We have vaccines, cures, w/e for strays. My dog was free, given up with a Black Lab mother[father was 1/2 black lab and 1/4 golden retriever, nicest dog I’ve ever seen], yet he’s better behaved then dogs I see at Petland.
Save a dog from the pound, give an animal food so it may live.
Even if Vargas truely is cruel, he has shown us, through his “cruel” actions, that we are no different then he is.
January 1st, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Whoever does this is mean!! What kind of stinkin art is this!!
December 4th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I am an artist and to tell the truth, other “artists” who create “art”, most of them are a bunch of idiots. Many have no artistic skills and find stupid excuses to cover their inexistent talent by doing abstract or minimal art work. I know what I’m talking about because I’m surrounded by “artists”.
What this guy did was sick, all he cared about was becoming famous, doesn’t matter how, negative or positive, just to become famous, because that’s what most artists want.
Just listen to the nonsense they sell you when talking about their creation, mood stuff, emotions etc. and tell me just how many artists have you heard saying that they create things because they feel like it.
All I create I create it because I feel like it and it sudden, I don’t draw dark things when I’m depressed, I go play on my PC or PS.
Many, many are unable to hold properly a pencil or a brush and they become misunderstood, because your perspective is limited. He’s not incapable to come up with something really artistic, why else you don’t understand an artist?
It’s very simple to throw garbage randomly and explain to someone that we all live in a miserable chaos. Place a glass with water and a withered flower and say that we as human, we who have anything at our disposal, still feel lonely and will go all emo about this like the flower and tight the poor dog and coming up with cretinous explanations.
Who remembers the picture with the dying black child and the vulture? That little boy was crawling his way to the nearby cantina and that photographer didn’t bother helping him. He took the picture and left and won an award for that. Just like an asian girl who got stuck in water and between some logs after the tsunami. They took her picture and then left, letting others to take her out, because the apparatus was too expensive.
If we do this to humans, then what’s stopping so called artists to see art in killing poor helpless living beings?
You do art for yourself, you don’t do it for others. There are more true artists in this world who are starving, too poor to buy themselves the necessary and are shadowed by such excuses calling themselves artists by making shitty art.
I’m ashamed and disgusted by what art has become today. I’m a starving artist and proud of it. I would prefer to die than to limit myself at something so simple and unimaginative, this is an insult to all art. Using now the word art is just lame, because you create nothing…you make some slight changes to what others did before you. We live in a time where we have no restriction, yet our imagination is restricted because only when you’re not allowed to do something you do it. There is no challenge to our imagination thus no art.
We’ll keep on seeing the same shit that we’ll never understand.
The guy is not an artist, art is no longer art, it’s just a bunch of excuses and things that a puny non-artist will never understand.
And for those present at the exhibition, they should suffer more than that idiot, or were they afraid to destroy his piece of art by feeding the dog and setting him loose? Were they afraid that they might have to pay lots of money for it if they did so? We’re such a pathetic race and deserve nothing.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
You Are What You Read
“I think this guy is sick! Someone should tie him up, no, put him in a glass box, so that he can’t stand up. Then heat up the room that he’s in and have a waterfall going in the corner. And if the bastard doesn’t die in a day, then gut him from head to toe. That shit isn’t art it’s the work of a disgusting piece of shit, devil, who deserves to burn in hell for that.”
This is just one of the thousands of outraged comments found across the internet directed at the artist Guillermo ‘Habacuc’ Vargas. Vargas gained global attention in 2007 when he captured an emaciated dog from the streets of San Jose, exhibited it in The Codice Gallery, Nicaragua. Tied up with no food or water he let the dog starve to death, with the title ‘Eres Lo Que Lees’ (‘You Are What You Read’) written in dog food on the wall behind the animal. The story swept across the internet as a chain email directing you to an online petition to stop the artist repeating the piece while representing Costa Rica at Bienal Centroamericana in Honduras in November of this year. The petition now holds over a two and a half million signatures. Angry blogs and Youtube videos call for Vargas to be given the same treatment as the dog and be tied to a post with no food or water. These blogs and videos feature thousands of comments, like the one above, condemning the artist as an “animal murderer” and denouncing his work as inhumane cruelty. Facebook groups have been created for incensed users to rant and rave about Vargas’ actions. These groups have hundreds of thousands of members. Vargas and the gallery have even received death threats.
The gallery later insisted that the dog, named Natividad, did not in fact starve to death but ‘was untied all the time except for the three hours the exhibition lasted and it was fed regularly with dog food Habacuc himself brought in’ and then escaped after one day. Vargas has declined to comment on the condition of the animal but says he wanted to test the public’s reaction and highlight the plight facing thousands of stray dogs in San Jose.
“Habacuc has put the guests in a position to question their own moral responsibility. Failure to act to save the dog indicates a process of rationalization on behalf of the guest, which probably considered the perceived facts of the situation: the dog was a stray set to face death anyway, it’s so far malnourished that it will be miserable regardless, it’s for the sake of art and who am I to ruin it, etc.”
Vargas’ refusal to comment on the dog’s survival has only furthered speculation about the dog’s demise and it is precisely what the artist wanted. The furore over the whole situation has become part of the artwork itself with each incensed comment and angry email adding to it’s message. Even though no one at the exhibition stepped in to help the poor dog, hundreds of thousands have felt aggrieved enough to sign the petition after reading the email or to leave a comment at the end of a blog. The artwork’s title You Are What You Read – it makes sense. To make no action when you feel things are in control but as soon as you’re told they aren’t and it’s easy to do “your bit”, everyone jumps on board.
Vargas’ work highlights people’s ability to ignore suffering and cruelty until it is presented to them out of the context of everyday life. There are tens of thousands of stray, starving dogs on the streets of San Jose and only a tiny proportion of the global population are actually trying to help them. Then as soon as one is publicly displayed, the whole world throws up their arms in outrage and jostles to get on the bandwagon. By putting the animal in an art gallery, Vargas made an example of the dog. While some people will find that cruel, the statement that he was making about cruelty was immensely resonant, sparking off this global debate. Vargas was, in fact, making an example out of us, the apathetic public. He understood, and intended, the outcry that took place, it was all part of his artwork, and while it doesn’t lessen the impact of the impassioned outbursts of those against the spectacle, it shows them in a different perspective. The comments are turned back on the commenters to expose their contradictions. The striking thing is that some people are still not backing down, in spite of the evidence presented that the dog survived and was well-looked after, and stubbornly continue to protest.
“With the unlimited access to information comes the heavy responsibility of critical thinking.”
The furious reactions to the exhibit have come from all over the world, probably further than even Vargas could have imagined. The exaggerated interest has amplified the artist’s local concerns about stray dogs on the streets of San Jose and turned them into a global discussion about animal cruelty. This would have been incapable of happening without the World Wide Web. This far-reaching technology has shrunk the world to an unimaginably small scale. Through instant messaging, Facebook statuses and online forums; news, information and gossip can be sent around the planet in a flash and can be discussed between people of cultures than would not usually have contact. The internet has become an interactive, electronic debating table where anyone can voice their opinion, intellectual or ignorant, and be heard, but with the abundance and easy availability of information, you have to be careful what you believe.
Anybody can access Wikipedia and write something, anybody can write a blog and anybody can read them. Chain emails arrive in inboxes everyday claiming that Bill Gates wants to give you money or that forwarding the email to ten more people will bring you good luck and most people delete them instantly but something about Vargas’ case was different. Even though it only takes a couple of minutes ‘googling’ the name Guillermo Vargas to find websites and weblogs that provided evidence to the contrary of the petitions and protests against Vargas’ work, millions of people didn’t take the time, when faced with the chain email, to think for themselves, do a tiny amount of research and come to an informed decision. Instead they condemn a man off the back of uninformed evidence.
The increase in audience awareness across the world has shifted the possible outcomes of work for artists such as Vargas. His exploration into the reaction that this work could cause highlights how much our communicative powers have changed over the last decade. But equally it exposes our almost unquestionable belief in the information that we know is being written behind screens. Our faith in the words written by others has come out of historical approaches to recording and writing our histories and events. But in this new age of mass un-vetted and uncontrolled communication our creative and expressive avenues must become increasingly self aware, for if you are what you read then we must be able to stand behind what we write.
References
http://www.theginblog.com/2007/10/artist-chains-up-dog-until-it-dies-is-this-art-or-animal-abuse/
http://www.pluginamp.com/network/node/3575
http://www.dabbler.ca/news/parliament-of-one-starving-dog-as-art-%E2%80%93-don%E2%80%99t-believe-everything-you-read-20080411/
December 1st, 2008 at 4:36 am
This is crazy I can not believe that someone would do such a thing to a poor defenseless animal. It had a nice life living on the streets with all those other dogs and probably was not dying of a result of the city’s lack of care for these animals. What does it matter that there are thousands of strays dying on those streets, its their life. I mean what kind of point was he trying to make. Everyone is right he should die and bryan is right to compare it to 9/11.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
So this is what people call art? Modern art these days can really be seen as anything, but where are we going to draw the line? Starving an innocent animal is not something that should be allowed to simply make a point or inspire people. This self proclaimed artist will now only be famous because of his cruel and senseless acts. It’s sad that he will now be a part of history because of this, rather than simply remain a useless piece of skin. He is now just another sick part of our world’s history just like the 9/11 attacks or school shootings. If this guy wants his art to be worth more money he should just kill himself rather than torture an animal.
November 21st, 2008 at 7:25 am
this is so wrong nobody should even be alowed to starve anybody its just like starving a child or a baby its not art its sick and animal cruelty this man should have to go to prison for life cuz what he did is so wrong.
November 19th, 2008 at 12:02 am
if he wanted to prove a point how come he didn’t tie himself up and starved himself to death?
November 18th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Do any of you besides wendy check out issues, or just freak out about hearsay?
Also, have any of you ever been to Nicaragua? The artist, and yes he was an artist and his art accomplished his goal if you listened to him, made the exhibit as a testament to our hypocrasy.
The dog in the exhibit was a street dog, and it looked mistreated because it was…on the street. Once again, if you care that much, visit Nicaragua.
Where is PETA and their friends for those dogs? They only cared when one was forced in front of them and the rest of us. The artist said the exhibit was a message for Nicas. These dogs are ignored and treated worse than garbage as they die slowly and horribly on the streets. There was no outrage until ONE got put in an art exhibit.
And its death is unconfirmed and improbable.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
My Humanities teacher once told me that, if the artist call it art, it is art. Have any of the people who are against Hubacuc even know his story? I mena, who are all of them to judge this? His point in this piece was very clear, but it’s also very true.
People are hypocrites.
I’m a dog lover, I’ve grown up around them, but I’ve also lived in Mexico, where half-dead dogs, like Natividad, roam the streets like they’re invisible. No one does anything about it, because no one cares. Animal lover or not, no one does anything. There is no proof that Natividad was starved by Hubacuc. Natividad was dog he found on the streets, ALREADY TIED UP, which he took to an art exhibit.
The piece was called Eres lo Que Lees, which translates to You Are What You Read, and it was written in dog food. In my opinion, dog food sounds about as tasty as shit, and if you look at like that, then what you’re reading is shit. You Are Shit. People are shit. And everyone knows very damn well that no one would’ve cared if that dog was out on the streets, doing the same thing it was doing indoors.
It hurts more to know that it took a dog dying to prove a point, than actually seeing the dog itself dying.
Out of all the people who were at the exhibit, no one did anything. How’s that for “sick”?
November 18th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
IT was never stated or proven that the dog died!!! it is not a fact that the dog died of hunger or that the dog was abused!!!
November 14th, 2008 at 12:06 am
It is sick to think that there are people out there that find pleasure to treat animals dirt! This so called artist has a sick mind should be starved and tied up or the world to see. i wonder if then he will continue to believe that displaying cruelty is art. I really hope that some serious action has happened. shame on him.