Dog and Pony Show 101

I got an e-mail from a friend just the other day asking me to sign a petition against an artist.  Recalling the scandal a few years ago when one artist displayed work depicting the Vigin Mary with elephant dung, I wondered what new titllating installation awaited visitors now.  Well, it seems the petitioner may have the facts wrong but the “artwork” in question was truly worth protesting.

The artist?  Guillermo Vargas (also known as Habacuc or Habakkuk, sometimes also cited as his middle name).  The artwork?  A starving dog tied on a short lead in a corner of the host art gallery.  Before you get too incensed, the dog was apparently caught from the streets where it was indeed starving and was part of the art installation only once for a period of a few hours.  It escaped or was turned loose later that same day (source: Humane Society).  The gallery is located in Managua, Nicaragua, and Vargas reputedly intended the setup to educate people about the number of street dogs who starve each year in Central America.

While I think the installation was poorly done at best, I think the response was poor as well.  When I googled Vargas, I got a lot of blogs full of unsubstantiated claims, pure speculation, and, overwhelmingly, anger.  Some insisted he captured the dog and starved it himself; some stated the dog was tied just out of reach of food and water in the gallery; and rumors as to whether or not the dog actually escaped or died flooded blog after blog with the tenacity of crabgrass.  Of course, being unilingual, my search was sadly limited to Google’s translating capabilities and pages in English.  So it is very possible that important details from people who knew more slipped by unnoticed.  That said, I think the Humane Society would have been more concerned – and significantly more outspoken – than they were on the incident had it been as dire as some claimed.

I think the idea (reputedly) behind the artwork is worthwhile.  If thousands of poor beasts are starving in the streets, perhaps there is something people can do to help ease the situation.  And as the saying goes, even bad press is good press; anger and pity are very strong emotions, practically guaranteed to get a reaction of some sort.  Although the international fervor probably blindsided him, art is meant to evoke emotion and it’s clear in this case it did just that.  What bothers me – and others – is not the idea behind it but the way he went about presenting it.  Perhaps he felt photos would not do the plight of the animals justice but tying one in a corner for people to oggle hardly seems better.  Of course, I would never have used elephant dung alongside the Virgin Mary so what do I know?

I just think that, before we take up the call to crucify a man, perhaps it is best to learn why.