Guillermo Vargas Habacuc

[Sonny]

Has this guy done his second edition of the starving dog exhibit he had last year?

For those of you who don't know, this guy is an artist who last year, took a dog off the streets, tied it to one end of an art gallery and put a bowl of food at the other end. The dog ended up starving to death slowly as people came to see this 'art.'

Now let me first say that growing up the way I did, watching a dog starve to death would bother me, I had dogs growing up and lived a somewhat sheltered middle class life. I'm not that smart and for the most part, art goes right over my head but the message seems blatantly obvious to me. Why do I keep hearing people say "What's the point of this art? It's pointless. He's just a sadist."

[Sonny]

BTW. Please don't post pics of the exhibit.

[misterpariah]

Could no one untie the dog or was the room somehow sealed of making interaction with the dog impossible?

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by misterpariah

Could no one untie the dog or was the room somehow sealed of making interaction with the dog impossible?

See that's how I interpreted the piece.

The dog is supposed to be the starving people of the world. The food to feed the dog(people) is right there just out of reach. While the dog starves people come to see it but no one bothers to slide the food over towards the dog.

Or maybe I'm just dumb. (please don't comment on this) LOL.

The fact that people are enraged that so many flocked to see this exhibit and did nothing adds to it even more.

[misterpariah]

I know I could google this but did PETA not in someway get involved and was this in North America?

[Sonny]

As far as I know, PETA did not get involved and he's supposedly going to show the same exhibit in Honduras this year.

[misterpariah]

OK I googled him. This exhibit was in Costa Rica and people had access to the dog. One picture showed the dog lying on the floor (still alive) with several people standing around not really paying attention to it.

[Salbass]

I want to do an exhibit where someone is repeatedly kicking that guy in the balls.

[misterpariah]

Here is a part of his original [most recent] statement:"Hello everyone. My name is Guillermo Habacuc Vargas. I am 50 years old and an artist. Recently, I have been critisized for my work titled "Eres lo que lees", which features a dog named Nativity. The purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. In my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought.

Now, if you publicly display one of these starving creatures, such as the case with Nativity, it creates a backlash that brings out a big of hypocrisy in all of us. Nativity was a very sick creature and would have died in the streets anyway.

The dog died, he wasn't punished and won first prize.

[Sonny]

he purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. In my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought.

Whoops. Another false interpretation by me. I feel like I'm in my highschool english class all over again. I give my interpretation of a poem and the class looks at my like I'm a fool.