artist starves dog - is asked to do it again

I'm getting a second round of email from animal-loving and art-loving friends about this. I already signed the petition (after google-ing and snope-ing the case and finding that it's real). Please sign if you are moved to.


"Artist" Starves Dog to Death at Show (and is asked to do it again)

Guillermo "Habacuc" Vargas is an artist from Costa Rica. For one of his gallery exhibitions, he paid five children to trap a stray dog for him. He tied the dog (who he called Natividad) to a wall and starved the dog to death. The Central American Art Biennial has invited "Habacuc" Vargas to stage the "piece" once again in Honduras in 2008.

I read that some visitors to the gallery asked to help the dog and the "artist" and the gallery would not allow it. Responding to outcry the gallery claimed, at one point, that the dog was fed when the gallery was closed until he escaped one night. But the "artist" says that the dog did die of starvation and thirst. Later he said the dog was sick and would have died anyway. After the dog died they removed the body, and the "work" became just the rope tied to the wall.

I understand that the "artist" said at first that the "piece" was about a guard who was mauled to death by dogs, but later said it was about how people ignore stray and hungry animals in his town.

A petition is available for people to sign requesting that The Central American Art Biennial not allow a similar "work" in their 2008 Biennial in Honduras.

Petition at: http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/



BE WARNED! The links below shows pictures of the dog in the process of dying from starvation and thirst.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES IN THE LINKS

WARNING images at:
http://elperritovive.blogspot.com/

WARNING more images at: