Changing the dogs environment by placing it in a gallery under the same conditions doesn't automatically make it art.
It's more like a campaign for cruelty against animals.
This guy should work for a local animal protection unit if he cares so much.
He's using the shock method to try and make people more aware of the issues at hand.
I don't think it works though.

He cut the dogs food source off completely by chaining it in the gallery when atleast when it roamed it had the chance of food.

This guy can't care about animals if he does this. He's using the finger pointing tactic to avoid responsibility.

- it never "roamed," it was chained up when it was found

- when found the dog was extremely ill to the point that it did not want to eat

- it died within a day... a normal healthy dog does not die in a day from lack of food.

this dog was basically half dead when they found it.... so, yes they should have taken it to a vet.... maybe it would have lasted two days. but some of these facts change things a bit, no?

So it was already someone elses "art", and this guy claimed it for himself. :rolleyes:

Except the death of a dog on the street is not going to bring some artist attention around the world and the profit that goes with it. The thing that disgusts me more than the dog starving to death (despite his accusations of hypocrisy, I'm not a Honduran and I am angered in the same way when I see a dog starve in the streets) is that the death of this particular dog was advantageous to the artist.

"Guillermo Habacuc Vargas, put a starved dog as a work of art, the poor dog died there, he did not want anyone give him food or water."

That's what bugs me the most. Nobody would stop you from giving a stray dog on the street some food or water if you felt "moved" to do so.
I'm not saying this dog (obviously pretty sick and almost already dead) would have survived much much longer, but giving no chances at all is a deprivation that's pretty cruel.

I don't really understand why the people who were looking at the "exhibit" allowed it to remain as it was. They are just as guilty as the "artist".

Well said

There is no excuse for this kind of cruelty, if the dog was on the street and ill, take it to a vet or call the equivalent animal cruelty people in that country

Dont put it in a gallery and pretend there is some higher ideal to the act like "art"

This guy saw an opportunity for sensationalist media attention and cynically took it

If his art stood on his own merits he wouldn't need to pull stunts like this

fuck no this is not art.

but abuse has merit where it shows up the hypocrisy of western civilisation.

next: get a starving african child in there, then we'll talk some more!

If an african child dying of AIDS, in his last days, was put in a hospital bed and placed in a gallery, would that be art?

I really don't know about this.
It isn't creative
it isn't expression
I wouldn't be able to say it's art. Just neglect with a label.

thats horrible. i have will tell people at art school tomorrow about this. they will probably be appalled.

I agree.

I don't know how this was allowed.

...see, i don't know if i'm just being overly simplistic or semantic about this. it just seems like asking, "if i filmed an african child dying of AIDS, in his last days, would I have a film?"

and it's not just about the location, the fact that it physically takes place in a gallery. the art world is full of legitimizing institutions like galleries, museums, critics, patrons, grants, etc. kind of like when something is done by a professor at a university... it implies institutional support, even if it wasn't there explicitly.

that's why i think these are much more productive points to make:



art is a social structure: if there was no gallery willing to exhibit this and no potential patrons eager to hang out on opening night, this would not have happened. i'm not trying to say the artist wasn't responsible, he absolutely was; it was his 'concept.'

but it was legitimized as art before it happened; denying that is useless and distracts from more important questions.

So, what you're saying is that Art is a social construct, and by that definition, the act of starving the dog to death, even though carried out by the artist, has further ramifications than that? You're implying that the gallery and the patrons are just as responsible for the death of the dog as the artist is... Which is to say that they have become part of the artwork, an interactive social experiment on a large scale... They have become the statement that the artist wishes to make, that human beings are fine with suffering, as long as it's not theirs, and that most art poseurs are nothing more than elegant voyeurs, no better than the upskirt perverts that populate the cybermedia...

i'm not sure who is better between the two... but yes the elegant voyeurs are like the upskirt perverts in many ways...

So you're saying that even though it's horrible and brings unnessecary sadness, it's still a well executed [dog star man] and successful piece of art?

i read the article and i kinda see where the guy was coming from and his interpretation of his "art". that being said, and i'll be honest, i really can't stand animals. i fucking hate most of them, dogs especially, but that is kinda fucked up. but why didn't anyone who was @ the show say something or feed the fucking thing, if they were so worried about it?

You don't like animals? Wow. Are you emotionally deprived?

lol, nah they just get on my nerves. their dirty, they tear shit up, piss & shit every where, cost alot of money and they make alot of godamn noise. although i do like horses & some cats. i've just never liked animals and haven't ever really had any emotional attachment to one. my roomate use to have 6 cats & 6 dogs... when i moved in and helped her clean her house i told her she had to get rid of the lil bastards cause i couldn't stand living in a house that smelled like kitty shit & piss. she was all "i'm sad, i don't wanna get rid of them". so of course i had to take them to the SPCA to have them euthanized, which i had no problem w/. so now all my friends when they have to get rid of animals they call me to "take care of the situation". i get alot of shit for disliking animals... but at the same time it's not like i'm out joy killing the damn things either.