More on Habacuc
For several days I’ve been sifting through blogs and comment pages about the
Habacuc installation in which the Nicaraguan artist tethered an emaciated stray dog in a gallery for three hours, with the words “Eres Lo Que Lees” (You are what you read) written on the wall in dog biscuits. The misplaced outrage over the piece by Habacuc, also known as
Guillermo Vargas Jiminez, is remarkable. With crazed anger they suggest that he be tied to something and fed to dogs. Others demand that he produce the dog, and take his lack of denial as proof for a chain e-mail’s claim that he allowed the dog to starve to death. (All credible evidence suggests that the dog was emaciated when captured, and was fed before and after the exhibition period before escaping.) Still others acknowledge that perhaps it is true that he fed the dog before and after the three hour exhibition period, but that even three hours was cruel, and that allowing the dog to escape back to the streets is also cruel. The
Humane Society's site laments the fact that he couldn’t be punished because there are no animal cruelty laws in Nicaragua. Most, if not all of these people live in privilege. They are from the United States or England or Europe. Indeed, they seem ignorant of the conditions in Nicaragua.
A country can only implement animal welfare laws when most of the humans in that country enjoy a certain standard of living.
UNICEF reports that Nicaragua is the third poorest country in the Americas. The per capita gross national product is just $453. The disparity between the distribution of the nation’s wealth is significant: forty-five percent of all income goes to the richest ten percent of the population and just fourteen percent goes to the poorest. The
CIA’s site confirms these facts and further states, “While the country has progressed toward macroeconomic stability in the past few years, annual GDP growth has been far too low to meet the country's needs, forcing the country to rely on international economic assistance to meet fiscal and debt financing obligations.” The CIA also states: “The US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has been in effect since April 2006 and has expanded export opportunities for many agricultural and manufactured goods.” However, the Nicaraguan economy is much more dependent on the service industry; agriculture represents only about seventeen percent of the gross national product. And, the
rising costs of both energy and grain, including corn, a main staple in the Nicaraguan diet, are further hindrance to any economic growth.
Indeed, many Nicaraguans are dependent upon
La Chureca, a massive garbage dump, for food and income. Almost a third of the people who work in the dump are children between the ages of seven and eighteen. They scavenge for items to sell and for discarded food, over which they often fight with dogs and carrion-eating birds.
Americans should also recognize the United States government’s role in perpetuating poverty and violence in Nicaragua with the
Iran-Contra affair of the 1980’s. The
Contras refers to insurgent groups that opposed Nicaragua’s
Sandinistas, a leftist political party supported by the people of Nicaragua in the 1970’s and 80’s. The Contras, short for contrarevolucionarios. operated out of camps in Honduras and Costa Rica and included remnants of the Somoza guard, which had a history of censorship, intimidation, torture and murder. Their actions, condemned by the World Court, included planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's Corinto harbor in order to disrupt shipping. The United States, unhappy with the idea of the Marxist Sandinistas, imposed a trade embargo on Nicaragua. Furthermore, the Reagan administration began to secretly and illegally support the Contras, funding them with money from arms sold to Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair.
Many individuals and organizations, including the
Humane Society, argue that if Habacuc wanted to expose the plight of stray dogs in Nicaragua, there were better ways to do it; he should not have exploited this one stray. But, alerting the world to the fact that there are so many starving, emaciated, homeless dogs wandering the streets of Nicaragua was just one small component of
Exposición #1. The installation is also about the starving people of Nicaragua. And even more so, it is about the fact that people with the power to act fail to do so when directly confronted with the opportunity. The artist did not stop anyone from feeding Natividad, the dog in his installation. No one tried. People are more content to feel outraged, to sign petitions, to ignorantly protest from the comfort of their heated homes, or air-conditioned offices, than they are to actually intervene. Think about this the next time you see a stray cat scamper through your neighborhood. Or the next time you pass by a homeless person begging for money or food. Or as you drive through a neighborhood with a women's shelter. Are you a hypocrite?
Habacuc Hoax
I have now received two chain e-mails about artist
Guillermo Vargas Jiminez' piece,
Exposición #1 (
Exhibit #1). The e-mail claims: "In 2007, the 'artist' Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery, and starved him to death. For several days, the 'artist' and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful 'masterpiece' based on the dog's agony, until eventually he died." It then goes on to ask the recipient to sign a petition to stop the installation from being exhibited again at the
Bienal Centroamericana Honduras.
In fact,
Exposición #1, originally installed at Códice Gallery in Managua, Nicaragua, included a captured emaciated stray dog, named Natividad, tethered with a short leash in the gallery, with the words "Eres Lo Que Lees" (You Are What You Read) spelled out above him on the wall in dog biscuits. The Sandinista anthem was played backwards as an incense burner burned with what Guillermo Vargas Jiminez, also known as Habacuc, claims were one hundred seventy five pieces of crack cocaine.
The artist claims that he wanted to test the public's reaction, insisting that not one of the exhibition's visitors attempted to intervene to end Natividad's suffering. In an
interview published on Yahoo (in Spanish), Habacuc explains that the installation was inspired by an event that occurred in 2005, in which Natividad Canda, a Nicaraguan crack addict, was fatally attacked by two dogs as police, firefighters, and other looked on, unwilling to intervene. A video of the incident, which lasted almost two hours, was taken and appeared on Nicaraguan television. He won't comment on the ultimate fate of the animal because he wishes to retain a sense of doubt. "Las respuestas categóricas no aportan nada," he says. (Categorical responses do nothing.) He further observes, "El ojo humano es traicionero. A fin de cuentas, lo que uno ve es aparente y cabe la posibilidad de que luego venga un momento de reflexión." (The human eye is treacherous. After all, what one sees is apparent and it is possible that then comes a moment of reflection.)
However, articles in the
Observer and
La Prensa (in Spanish) quote Juanita Bermúdez, the director of the Códice Gallery as stating, "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." She also says that the dog actually escaped after one day.
And, indeed, the
Humane Society has investigated the incident and although they condemn the use of live animals in "exhibits such as this," they also have not found cause to believe that the dog was actually harmed by the artist.
Furthermore, the claim that Habacuc intends to replicate the installation in the Bienal Centroamericana Honduras is also false. Although he has been asked to participate in the biennial, he never planned to recreate
Exposición #1; he is working on a new piece for the show.
That said,
Exposición #1 was a successful piece. The artist very knowingly used the media. He intended to expose the initial apathy of a public that had the opportunity to intervene, and then almost hypocritical outrage of the public after the fact, and he did this. In many ways this is not just what happened with Natividad Canda, but also with
Rodney King, and even with
Abu Ghraib. It is why we are told to yell "Fire!" rather than "Help!" if being attacked. It is how we walk past the homeless each day. It's how we watched the
Taliban abuse women in Afghanistan for years before
September 11th. It is even how we greedily and wastefully consume our natural resources as we frantically search for a cure for
global warming and climate change. We like to sign petitions and get outraged after the fact, but when faced with the opportunity to interpose, to mediate, to actually do something, would we? Do we? Are we?
Please don't call him "da Vinci!"
On my recent trip to Milan, I had the pleasure of seeing
Leonardo’s masterpiece,
L'Ultima Cena (
The Last Supper), which is housed in
Santa Maria delle Grazie. But, I cringed each time I heard someone refer to the artist as “da Vinci.” “Da Vinci” means, “from
Vinci.” It is the town from which the artist hailed; it’s not his last name!
Leonardo, an illegitimate child, was simply given the name “Leonardo” at birth. He had no last name, although his father, Ser Piero did allow him to be called Leonardo di Ser Piero. The Ser Piero family was fairly established in Vinci, a town in Tuscany. Thus, they were the Ser Piero’s da Vinci. When Leonardo became an apprentice to
Verrocchio, with his father’s permission, he referred to himself as Leonardo da Vinci in order to distinguish himself from other Leonardos. Indeed, he later referred to himself as Leonardo il Fiorentino, or the Florentine. (Leonardo eventually had his own workshop in Florence.)
So call him Leonardo da Vinci if you must. Or just call him Leonardo. He needs no other name. But please don’t call him “da Vinci.”
Pictured is Leonardo’s
The Last Supper
Tomas Vu at Amste Arte
Just outside of Milan, in Lissone,
AMSTE arte contemporanea gallery presents
Flat Land, an exhibition of paintings by Vietnamese-born American artist
Tomas Vu. The exhibition includes eight paintings from Vu’s
Flat Land series. The works, made from layered silk screens, collaged wood veneer, and ink wash, portray a catastrophic battle between man, nature and machine. Like the
Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib video projection at the Icebox in Philadelphia, this work also evokes
Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, ultimately depicting a beautiful, yet damning post-apocalyptic vision of a dystopic world.
Pictured are paintings from the exhibition.
Ciao da Milano!
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I’ve just returned from a five-day work trip to Milan, Italy. It was a fantastic time to be in the city because this past week was Milan’s annual turn at being the “Intenational Design Capital.”
Interni sponsored a GreenEnergyDesign event, in which designers were encouraged to create sustainable, eco-friendly products that used and reused materials in innovative ways.
The
Dream City asks the viewers to generate energy via bicycle in order to light up and see portions of the exhibits.
Tejo Remy’s Chest of Drawers XS is a smaller version of her first chest of drawers, entitled,
You Can't Lay Down Your Memory, created in 1991 as a critique of consumerism.
Till death do us part is a table whose concept was developed by Martino d’Esposito. Disturbed by the amount of usable objects that people throw away after buying newer replacements, that they will then eventually throw away and replace, the designer asked Frank Bragigand to paint a second-hand table, onto which he then burned a contract that binds its owner to keep, use and care for the table for the rest of his life.
Tobias Rockenfeld’s
Creatures repurposes old, broken toys by dissecting them and combining them with household items, trash and each other to create a series of creatures that swim, fly, hover, or crawl.
In Defense of Aliza Shvarts-- Sort of
Much press has recently been devoted to Yale Senior Aliza Shvarts’ senior thesis project after it was first written about in the
Yale Daily News. Shvarts, an art major, claims that the project is a documentation of a nine-month period in which she artificially inseminated herself from the ninth to the fifteenth day of her cycle, “as often as possible” and then used herbal, abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibit includes a large cube, suspended from the ceiling, and wrapped with plastic sheeting that holds the blood from the self-induced miscarriages, mixed with Vaseline.
After bloggers, and then major news sources picked up the story, most of them outraged that the project trivialized abortion or that Shvarts abused her right to choose, Yale University issued a
statement that the project was a fiction: Shvarts never impregnated herself nor induced miscarriages. “The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.”
However, Shvarts denies Yale’s account, claiming she does not know if she ever was impregnated and whether she actually miscarried. In a
guest column for the Yale Daily News, she writes, “To protect myself and others, only I know the number of fabricators who participated, the frequency and accuracy with which I inseminated and the specific abortifacient I used. Because of these measures of privacy, the piece exists only in its telling.” She goes on to say, “No one can say with one hundred percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen. The nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”
Shvarts insists that the purpose of the project was not “shock value” but instead to inspire discourse about the body and its relationship to art. And, indeed, the project has provoked conversation. In this respect, Shvarts was successful. However, from Shvarts’ comments about the work, it seems that the specific conversation generated was not the desired outcome.
The focus of the debate has been specifically about abortion— is abortion immoral and if not, is it wrong to attempt to get pregnant for the sole purpose of having an abortion? In many ways, the work reads like an anti-choice piece: If abortion is simply another operation, then why is it wrong/ outrageous/ upsetting/ offensive to attempt this operation as many times as possible in a short period? Are those who claim to be pro-choice but are upset by the act hypocrites? Are they revealing that they know that abortion is actually immoral? It does not inspire further conversation about the designation of certain body parts as sex organs or not. There has been no discussion about the ambiguity of whether the blood in the piece is actually the result of a miscarriage as opposed to simply being menstrual blood, as Aliza Shvarts had hoped there’d be. These points have inevitably been swallowed up by the more emotional, more controversial issue of abortion.
Ultimately, the work reads as naïve work of an undergraduate artist who has studied the work of performance artists like
Marina Abramovic and
Karen Finley and also wants to make something of importance, something that matters, but is unclear as to the specific statement she’s trying to make, or the most effective way to go about it. The piece is both heavy-handed, and unclear. The concept and materials seemed to have been chosen because they feel important; they are chosen for their controversy and yet the controversy provoked muddies any meaningful debate.
Much has been made about the fact that this student is a Yale undergraduate, a senior about to get a degree from one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions. Regardless of the college she is graduating from, she is an undergraduate: a twenty-one or twenty-two year old who has spent the last four years studying philosophy and theory and weird sciences and whatever else is a part of her bachelor of arts degree as an art major. She is now trying to put all this knowledge into practice as an artist, and, just as a political science major's senior thesis is likely thoughtful, but ultimately flawed, so too is this work. I certainly would not want to be judged upon the art I was making as a twenty-one year old.
What is amazing about this project is that it has generated so many comments of outrage, shock and horror. It's the naive, not particularly good work of a twenty-one year old getting her BA in art. Why talk about it at all?
The Soft Epic at the Icebox
On Thursday evening, I went to the
Crane Arts Center in Philadelphia, for their regular Second Thursday opening. I especially enjoyed the
Nadia Hironaka and
Matthew Suib video installation in the Icebox, entitled
The Soft Epic or: Savages of the Pacific West. Multiple projections create the 120 foot-long panorama. Pictures of historical disasters such as the 1960 Park Slope plane crash are collaged with representations of
Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights along with various effects and images from sci-fi and disaster films. The amalgamation of these dense layers of documentation, mythology and cinema is an epic narrative that recalls
Matthew Barney, Hollywood, popular culture, and the political anxiety that periodically and presently permeates American society.
Pictured is
The Soft Epic or: Savages of the Pacific West.
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