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JSE Dog chained and starved - in the name of art
April 13, 2008 Edition 3
Myrtle Ryan
A Central American artist who used a starving dog as the centrepiece for his exhibition has unleashed a storm of protest.
In the name of art, he chained the animal and deprived it of food and water.
Ironically, he gave the dog the name Natividad (birth), but apparently it died right in front of the public's eyes, still chained to the wall.
Animal welfare organisations worldwide are being inundated with letters of outrage from members of the public.
One of them, Pat Barr-Sanders of the Johannesburg-based Society for Animals in Distress - which works with animals in squatter camps - said she was receiving about 100 e-mails a day about the issue.
"I can no longer cope emotionally or workwise," said Barr-Sanders.
International organisations such as Care2 have asked people to sign petitions against the Costa Rican artist, Guillermo Habacuc Vargas.
It is claimed Vargas paid some children to catch the starving stray, which then became the centrepiece of his exhibition at a gallery in Managua, Nicaragua, last year.
Vargas said his "artwork" was a homage to Natividad Canda, a Nicaraguan who had recently been killed by two rottweilers.
While many people asked him to release the animal, he refused. He is said to have prevented bystanders from giving it anything to eat or drink and although it was obviously sick, no vet was called.
Vargas was then chosen to represent his country at the Bienal Centroamericana in Hon- duras this year, which has stirred up further outrage.
Untrue
The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) claims some of the information circulating in this regard is untrue - though it does not say what details are false.
It confirms the exhibition did take place in October last year, but said while Vargas would be participating in Honduras, he did not intend to repeat his exhibit using a dog.
"While there is an animal cruelty law in Costa Rica, there is no such legislation in Nicaragua.
"Therefore, the artist did not break the law by mistreating this dog," said a spokesman for the society.
The society said it was unclear how long the dog had been kept, or why, if it was suffering, no one had done anything about it.
The WSPA in Costa Rica has contacted the Ministry of Art and Culture to urge it to ban Vargas from representing Costa Rica in the forthcoming event.
"The response was that since Vargas was participating at the Biennial with a different exhibit, they could not ban him from attending."
WSPA said it was unfortunate this artist would now gain publicity through this second exhibition despite his previous display involving mistreatment of the dog.
"Our Costa Rica office continues to monitor this situation in the hope we can still stop the artist from participating in the Biennial with any exhibit," said the spokesman.
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