LAST year, Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas Habacuc took a dog from the street he named “Nativity”, and tied him on a short rope in an art gallery in Managua, Nicaragua. He left his “installation” there for several days without food or water until it died.

This provocative and heart-wrenching installation has caused a huge uproar even amongst people who don’t usually care about animals. It is shocking not because the dog was excruciatingly thin, scabby and ill, but because it happened in an art gallery, shown to the public as an “art piece”.

Our streets, pavements and sometimes our own neighbours’ driveways have been art galleries with similar art pieces for years. Why the public outcry now? Animals are abused everywhere, every day. Stray dogs just as thin and ill lie on roadsides and hover around restaurants hoping for a bit of food, and people shoo them away, and then leave a table littered with left-overs. So many houses have dogs tied to short leashes under the sun or rain all day, or are kept in small cages day and night, as their only purpose is to bark when anyone approaches the gate. Some dogs can’t even stand properly because some of these cages have wire flooring for the owners’ convenience.

Go visit some animal shelters. You’ll see “installations” with crusty and raw skin, protruding ribs and vertebrae you can count, and even gleaming white bones exposed somewhere. And death was a reward that they had to wait for, because it wasn’t practical or cost effective to bury less than a certain number of animals. These animals are pets previously owned by people who abused them, and people who don’t bother to spay them but let them loose, and they multiply. Animal shelters cannot cope with the number of strays that continue to be on the rise due to the irresponsibility of some people. Shelters are so crowded that the living conditions are worse than the gallery where Nativity was tied.

The next time you see an abused dog, take a few minutes to look into his or her eyes. They’re not so different from those of Habacuc’s art piece.

But you know what … why does it matter what the artist’s intentions were, or how many ways he should be tortured? He may very well be a cruel nutcase who did it for fun and publicity. Or he may be a brave and noble person to sacrifice his reputation and safety to make a point. He might have put himself in that position to represent human cruelty, and have people hate him and sympathise with his victim. Would it have been as effective if he tied himself up and starved to death in the gallery?

Art should provoke us and challenge our values. But how do we choose to deal with our outrage? Personally, I don’t give a toss what Habacuc is all about. More importantly, what we are going to do about what’s been happening right under our own noses, which ironically, was successfully brought to the world’s attention by Habacuc.

Poor dog to have been a victim of “a little evil for a greater good”. But it would indeed be poor dog, if we allowed him to have suffered and died in vain, when this hullaballoo boils over and we forget we ever signed a petition.

Zhang Su Li
Via e-mail

Source: The Sun – April 24, 2008