Starving dog exhibit was a hoax...??!!

[Millys Mum]

Kelly can you visit the swap shop and confirm so i can post out to woo woo 

[Kelly]

I'm with Tpepaul on this one. The way this 'stunt' was planned was fundamentally wrong. However, the point was made - how many people (not on here) probably walk passed a starving dog every day and do not give it a second glance? Yet I guarantee that that same person would have been outraged at this 'stunt' and signed the petition - Why? Because this dog was apparently 'starved' for art? How about the dog starving on the street because someone cannot be bothered to care for it anymore?

THe artist was very wrong in his actions, and to release the dog after just makes him much worse as his initial concept was to show our inability to rationalise our actions when faced with them, yet he did exactly the same thing by allowing the dog to go back to its mediocre street existance. Reality is alot of those signatories will go back to their lives, walking passed the starving dog, and this artist will face the backlash for years to come - really he should've found a more constructive way of showing his disdain for society.

[woowoo]

The guy is pure scum and any profit he made from that poor dogs suffering should be paid to an animal welfare org. Instead of putting the poor animal back on the streets he could've helped it. It's just sick!

[MrsR]

All of this has greatly upset me and I just cannot get my head around it all.

[JackSpratt]

I've looked into this a bit more and the artists quotes are permanently changing regarding what happened to the dog.

I just wanted to say if Nativity (the dog) didn't make it from this atrocity that may or may not have been inflicted on him, I hope he's bounding about somewhere much nicer now.

[Kirst]

I dont care whether it was a hoax or not - to use an animals suffering as art is sick.

[JackSpratt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Vargas

My partner got sent the petition through his emails and looked up the artist - he found this. (He's signed the petition twice now, because I already did it for him!)

[JackSpratt]

Hmmmm. I hope that it was indeed a hoax - I'd hate to think a dog was allowed to starve for art. It's still a terribly distasteful way to get your message across regardless of if it was a stunt or not.

And how was it to the dogs advantage to supply it with food and water regularly and then just release it if that's what happened? Surely if the artist wanted to prove a point he could have kept the dog and cared for it. Definitely shock tactics to get the artists name recognised.

[claws n purrs]

Whether the dog was fed in the gallery and escaped in the night (very unlikely), it doesn't negate the fact that using a starving dog as an exhibit in an art gallery to prove a point by the 'artist' is wrong in every conceivable way.     

Seems coincidental that it's now been claimed a hoax when it's provoked such a huge backlash. 

Why couldn't the 'artist' have made some positive statement about rescuing animals off the streets instead of using shock tactics to get his name mentioned.   

[Mark]

I still can't get my head round why a Dutch humanitarian trust are sponsoring the gallery. If the poor dog did die, it isn't humanitarian - if it was an experiment it was still not very humanitarian as there were a lot of people all of the world greatly distressed by it.

[blackcat]

very interesting backpedalling indeed, as the first report said he was demonstrating the sheeplike attitude of art lovers who would tolerate something like this if it was called art. AND they dumped the poor starving dog back on the streets once they had used it for whatever their original or ultimate purpose was - either way, he is culpable of cruelty 

[Mark]

I think it is probably more like backpedalling as the "artist" didn't know how strongly people would react.

[tpepaul]

Hi there

You've probably all heard about the "artist" who displayed a starving dog in Costa Rica? Well, it would appear that it was a hoax intended to reveal people for what they really are - "hypocritical sheep". I don't have time to type the full story so apologies for the link, but you can read it on my blog here:[link removed - I have copied the text which is below]

Really don't know what to make of it at the moment...

Text copied from blog:

Starving dog exhibit reported as a hoax

The story of a dog being starved to death as part of an art exhibition appears to have been falsely reported by Costa Rican newspaper The Nation, according to new sources. I reported the appalling story here last week among global outrage about the exhibit and a reported invitation to repeat the work elsewhere.

It has now emerged, however, that artist Guillermo Habacuc Vargas 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.

Juanita Bermúdez, director of the Codex Gallery, stated that he would not have allowed the dog to be mistreated, that it ate and drank regularly, and that it was allowed to escape back to the streets from where it was taken at the end of the exhibit. "It is conceptual art and a work that leaves a social message", he said.

The stunt provoked massive outrage on a global scale, and over a million people have signed an online petition to try and prevent another dog being starved to death in a repeat of the exhibit. Unconfirmed reports say that the artist even received death threats and, judging by the vehement anger I've seen in response to this story, that would not suprise me.

The strange thing is perhaps how you react knowing now that this was a hoax. I suspect, like me, you still feel angry, perhaps that it's sick, and that your initial reaction was totally justified. But though I may not agree with his shocking methods whatsoever, I have to admire Guillermo Habacuc Vargas' ability to inspire such a reaction and, in that sense, didn't he achieve what he set out to do? Whether it qualifies as 'art', conceptual or not, is a totally different matter...