Guillermo Vargas Habacuc

Hello all!

How are you? I hope this finds you well. Sorry I've been out of touch for a while, but I can be like that sometimes. I do sincerely apologize. Especially since I have so many things to write about!

The first thing that comes to mind is in regards to the above-mentioned person: Guillermo Vargas. Ever heard of him? I hadn't until a couple of my friends joined a group called 'Starving Dogs is Not Art - Please Stop this Artist!' on Facebook. Needless to say, I followed the links and found out (through many many links and several twists and turns and convoluted allegations) that this man (allegedly an artist) tied a starving dog to a wall in an art gallery in Costa Rica, placed a bowl of food just outside the dog's reach, and allowed it to die. This was his 'art' piece.

The reason I have used the word alleged more than once is that, as with many sensational stories found on the web, there are many different threads one might follow and it's not always easy to determine the truth.

The truth, as far as I could determine, is that the artist did pay some local kids to catch the stray dog, he did tie the dog to the wall of the gallery, and he did place dog kibble outside of the dog's reach. The patrons of the gallery did not seem to do anything to try to save the dog. The dog did ultimately die (it was already a hungry stray, and it happened in a couple of days). This happened last August. The judges of some art contest decided (on the basis of this show) that Vargas would be among those who represent Costa Rica at the Central American Biennial Exhibition of Art 2008 in Honduras. There has been considerable public condemnation of this artist and his art and there is an on-line petition asking that he not be allowed to show at the biennial. The petition has over one million signatures on it.

Here is a link to one of the original stories published in a Costa Rican online paper, nacion.com. It's in Spanish. You can translate the page using babelfish or you can believe me.

Some people are suggesting that the whole thing was a hoax and that the artist made his point. However, from what I can tell, the dog died. Snopes claims that the status is undetermined. The artist has pulled his website and his myspace pages. Prior to pulling them, he had apparently claimed that the dog would have died anyway, so the fact that the dog died after a day tied to a wall in a gallery makes no difference. He wanted to show people the hypocrisy of humans who ignore stray and dying dogs on the street, but feel anger when one is tied up in a gallery and denied food. Another sound bite from him (translated and paraphrased of course) was that if they were so worried about the dog, why did none of the people call the police or try to remove the dog. He also claimed the exhibition was in honour of a man who had been attacked and killed by two rottweilers in a factory: Mr. Natividad Canda.

This is a link to a page which claims to have the whole true story...

Regardless of why he did it, it seems pretty clear that it was done. Apparently, the Costa Rican powers-that-be in the arts realm have decided to let Vargas go to the Biennial because he will not be using a live animal in this exhibition, so it will not be like the last one. Care2

Wow... that was a pretty long back story wasn't it? I was considering not writing this post because I did not want to contribute to the press, but figured I wouldn't really be adding much.

So, what do we think about this? I don't mean about the poor dead dog. Obviously it's a bad thing for any being to die cruelly of starvation. Tethering a dog to a wall is as bad as putting it in a cage and I don't like putting any animals on display in an enclosure from which they cannot escape. No, I don't like zoos, and I leave it at that.

... but I digress.

My take on this story (and the ensuing public backlash) is that I don't think that Mr. Vargas counted on the power of the internet to spread his cruel photos all over the world. I think that he may have wanted to make the point about hypocrisy (and garner some extra publicity via the sensational nature of his exhibition), but didn't take into account the fact that animals have different rights in different parts of the world. Particularly in North America (I'm sure they do in Europe too, but I've no direct experience with that) where the family dog is literally a part of the family, and stray dogs are essentially a thing of the past. Of course, we all know that there are still strays, but not nearly to the extent that there are in other places in the world I've been, and apparently, in Costa Rica. A stray dog would not last long here before someone called the SPCA or Animal Control to take the dog to a shelter. We love our dogs! (Well, I love my cat, but I was using the royal 'we'.)

Thus, I think his mean (and I use that word in it's truest sense) exhibition and intentions have backfired against him and have shown that he is primarily sensationalist, rather than insightful commentator on the human spirit. He would not be allowed to show that exhibition in Canada (I'm not sure about the States, but I doubt it), not only because we have laws about the prevention of cruelty to animals, but also because there would be far too much public outcry even before he could set it up.

I don't really have much else to say about this. I sincerely hope that we (humans) do not become so debauched and desensitized that someday we will view torture of living beings as art or entertainment because that would be wrong.

Poor little Minou has been in hiding since she read about this... I told her she didn't need to worry because I would protect her!




Thanks for tuning in peeps!