Animal lovers please read-Very sad
 

http://guillermohabacucvargas.blogspot.com/
That was in oct of 2007. His work was deemed art and he's doing it AGAIN!
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Artis...ay-82091.shtml
Sign the petition to end the crazy ARTIST's current work!
http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.html

i dono i kinda skimmed it. what he said about stray dogs dying every day is true. i think i need more enlightenment to establish a side on this situation.

its like we can pass by situations every day and completely ignore them. one person can take the situation to a drastically new level to make awareness and be hated and shunned. yet those can be the same people in some cases completely ignoring the situations right in front of them making themselves no better than the individual. just a thought.

This is EVERYWHERE and I've kind of just passed it off... it was the past etc.
we (as a culture) see dogs as family, they see them as property; there are no animal rights etc there
hate to break it to you but there are tons eaten every year

As a graduate of art school, this sadly doesn't surprise me, however, as an animal lover, it apalls me. I can see it from both sides. As an artist, he is doing it to make a point, to force the viewers to see what happens to strays every day, along with the inherent beauty of a living creature taking its last breath (sounds sick maybe, but its there). Contemporary artists are extremists. In a world where everything has already been done, its hard to find something new to make a name for yourself. Using animals, dead or a live, is not something new either. In the 60s, Robert Beuys made a performance piece entitled How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. Another performance artist used live wolves, and yet another even shot his own hand for a video piece.

As an animal lover, I would think that finding an already dead animal might be able to get the same point across, and my instincts would be to take the animal to the vets to help it, but some different cultures see things different ways.

not in Costa Rica. they don't eat dogs there. while there are a bunch of "town" dogs, those that just about everyone who passes through the town square has a hand in feeding, playing with, etc., i have never seen that kind of abuse in Costa Rica - ever.

i got a note from one of the board members talking about the petition, and i just wanted to let everyone know, as it doesn't say so in english, that further down the page in spanish it's written, "Murió en la galería no se le dio alimento", which in english means "he died in the gallery because [they] did not feed him"... so, the petition is dead, as is the dog.

we can take strides to make sure that this doesn't happen in our neck of the woods. trying to affect something in Costa Rica without actually being there is fairly impossible. i know people from Costa Rica, have visited several times on extended vacations, and i have to tell you that i find it incredible that a Costa Rican did this, or allowed this to happen, to an animal. they are very compassionate people, the kindest, gentlest people you could ever know. many Costa Ricans have dogs as pets and they are treated as part of the family, as a whole. while it may be that in certain regions something like this was allowed to happen, i can assure you that it is the exception - not the rule.

it breaks my heart to see things like this. it makes me even more determined to make sure that animals are treated fairly here in the US. make it your mission to make sure it doesn't happen anywhere that you can control it. if one person can affect one other person, then things have a way of picking up exponentially...

OK, so this strikes a chord with me on 2 counts:

1) Obviously, the humane animal welfare aspect. So he says he's doing it to raise awareness...BS....there's MUCH better ways to raise awareness than to let any living creature suffer and die. He's going to die eventually, too, maybe he should tie himself to a wall so people can watch him starve to death. He can call it performance art. There won't be an encore, but that's fine by me.

2) The 'art' aspect. I was technically an art major in college (commercial art/graphic design), and HATED being characterized as such mainly due to the freaks such as this nutjob that made up 80% of the art dept. I appreciate art (real art), and like going to museums, etc., BUT I tend to disagree with a lot of the crap out there that people want to pass off as art. What this guy is doing is FAR from art, and he is a sorry excuse for a human being.

You all have to admit - he did raise awareness. The end may not justify the means... but the means did achieve the end. This is all over the internet, probably all over the news, and I'll be damned if it didn't snap some people into saying "holy ****" who woulda just walked past a suffering animal in the past. People will have second thoughts about the dog their neighbors keep chained up outside 24/7. It was an unwilling sacrifice on the dog's part... but I'd say there are good chances that that dog's sacrifice can save the lives of a few other animals.

And also, you can see in the background of some pics that food and drinks were allowed in the gallery... and nobody stopped to give the dog a bite of food. How do they feel now?

Wasn't the USA. Most people probably didn't care or saw it as "art"

You do realize that we're out of the days where everyone past our borders are savage heathen nomad war tribes, right? :lol:

:nod: but like i said not everyone sees dogs as family, they're pets (not as close as we associate them) but also used as tools, or even dinner

It's a matter of sensitivity

the main part that i notcied was that it said the dog died just ONE day after first being exhibited... so being starved to death by the artist wasn't the cause of death... even at that point, feeding the dog and without proper imediate medical treatment, the dog would have died regardless

Culture or not, it doesn't matter. Letting an animal, any animal, suffer and die for any reason is unacceptable, especially on public display. The only awareness he's raised is how big an _ _ _hole he is.

In this country we don't see cows as family, and we use them as a food source, but having one tied to suffer and die on public display for any reason would be completely unacceptable.

I noticed that, too, but it doesn't matter if it died 15 minutes after being put on display. Bottom line is it should've been humanely euthanized.

Or died a natural death?

i agree, but not all places in the world have the resources for that, especially for a stray. Here we are lucky to have the ASPCA which runs on donations for the most part. In most other countries, i doubt an organization like that exists. So for that country that may be the only way. sucks though.

That's fine, but it should've been left alone then and not captured so it's death could be exploited and put on display. Animals die in the wild every day, but capturing and displaying a dying animal is not right, and it certainly is NOT art.

Yea so Iv been reading up on this and he's planning on doing the same thing again this summer of 08. thats what the one petition is at the top. I agree it def proves a point but I dont understand how anyone can say proving a point justfies letting an animal suffer and die. He had the means of helping this dog too, and he chose not too just like the people he was trying to get a point across too. Their are bums on the street that no one pays any mind to, heck I look away sometimes when im broke. You dont see anyone grabbing a poor homeless guy and tieing him up to prove a point. Were animals too guys those dogs have a heaven too, they were created by the same god we were. It breaks my heart to see this bro!!

*cracks knuckles*

:twak:



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