The Modern “Art” of Guillermo Vargas

Outrage at ‘starvation’ of a stray dog for art

Gerard Couzens in Madrid
Sunday March 30, 2008
The Observer

Chaining up a dog and forcing it to go without food and water in the name of art is a surefire way of making yourself unpopular with animal lovers. The furore created by Damien Hirst’s pickled sheep and Tracey Emin’s dirty bed pales into insignificance against the international outrage Guillermo ‘Habacuc’ Vargas has unleashed.

The Costa Rican has been called an animal abuser, killer and worse over claims that a stray dog called Natividad died of starvation after he displayed it at an exhibition last year at the Códice Gallery in Managua, Nicaragua. Vargas tethered the animal without food and water under the words ‘Eres Lo Que Lees’ - ‘You Are What You Read’ - made out of dog biscuits while he played the Sandinista anthem backwards and set 175 pieces of crack cocaine alight in a massive incense burner. More than a million people have signed an online petition urging organisers of this year’s event to stop Vargas taking part.

Article continues
Vargas, 32, said he wanted to test the public’s reaction, and insisted none of the exhibition visitors intervened to stop the animal’s suffering. [B]He refused to say whether the animal had survived the show[/B], but said he had received dozens of death threats.

Juanita Bermúdez, director of the Códice Gallery, insisted Natividad escaped after just one day. She said: ‘It 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.’

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2269320,00.html

OK, there’s art…as in real art (see http://artrenewal.org/ for the finest representational art; also see http://artsreformation.com/, entitled Reformation of the Arts and Music: An Exploration of the Arts, Music, and the Christian Worldview), then there’s…

sensationalism. pandering to the lowest in mankind. the desire to shock and not subsequently lead to higher understanding. foul, foul, foul cruelty to participants in the art (in this case, the dog) and the viewer who will never get the image of the suffering/disgusting/purely icky out of his or her mind.

There is too much of the latter in the world of “conceptual” art.

Not all concepts are equal, or worth pursuing.

God bless,
Laurel

God created all beauty, and good art reflects this. You don’t have to ask why people come up with ugliness in art. It is the ugliness of sin expressed.