First, there are multiple levels of condemnation - while in your thought experiment, I would probably think “why didn’t he just feed the dog?” that is a lot less culpable than the actions he actually took.
Second, had he made the film in your thought experiment, I would also be thinking about me and my response to suffering (would I have stopped? would I have fed the dog? do I not notice? do I actively ignore? do I just not care?) and society and its response to suffering.
Instead, the artist utterly failed to convey the message he is now claiming he really meant to send. The fact that we’re discussing him rather than the “art” means he pretty much sucks as an artist.
How did he do that? If anything, his actions should have made it more likely that someone would help the dog, because he made the dog the focus of people’s attention. If no one did anything to help the dog when they saw it in the museum, don’t they bear at least equal culpability in the dog’s death as the artist?
I don’t think people would conceive that intervention was necessary or expected or even allowed in an art musuem. You just don’t touch the art – that’s kind of a given. IMHO people would assume, wrongly but innocently, that the dog was receiving some kind of care behind the scenes, after hours, or some time when they were not there to witness it. I would be more likely to intervene with a sick animal on the street than I would with one that appears sick in a museum. YMMV.
Because people are trained not to fuck around with other people’s stuff. Once the dog was taken in by the artist, most people assumed it was taken care of. A stray dog on the street has the chance to be intevened with by someone who cares or maybe not. But as part of a exhibit? As stated by other posters, people do not generally fuck with art exhibits. Putting the dog in the exhibit implied that it was being cared for, not being deliberately left to die. Most people don’t make the leap to someone taking a dog in and then publicly leaving it to starve.
I suppose, then, that the question becomes: is there some threshold level of suffering you’d have to witness to cross over the barrier between “I’m gonna feed this starving doggie” and “must not touch the exhibits”?
OK, seriously then what is your definition of art? What should it stand for?
If you limit it to just something that is pretty or makes you feel good then you are off base.
Art is about provoking a response positive or negative and to use one thing to represent an idea, or thought.
In this case aside from the dog being there one day and not the next is there any proof that it did, in fact, die? The statment about its demise could very well be part of the exhibit.
A dead decaying doggie in that spot would pack a more powerful punch so where is it?
The guy set out to make people reflect on neglect of the weak and sickly by those who see them on our streets everyday. It’s ugly, its cruel and in many ways it is a true reflection. Shouldn’t art act as a mirror to the good and bad?
Cervaise, I’m sorry, but your argument does not hold up. There is a difference, a vast difference between not going out of your way to aleviate suffering and actively inflicting suffering. By taking control of the animal the artist assumed responsibility for it. He (assuming the story is true) has more obligations toward the animal than he does for the millions of other homeless animals on the streets. There are many starving cats in my neighborhood. That fact doesn’t mean I can stop feeding my cats. If I deliberately let them starve to death to prove some asinine “point,” I’m being a sadistic creep, just like the artist.
And what was his point? That there are bad things in the world? Gosh, thanks, Mr. artist, I would never have realized that if not for you.
Still holding out hope that the whole thing is a hoax.
Except by relocating the dog to a museum, he is no more actively inflicting suffering than he would if he had left it in the street. The argument against this guy seems to be that he did wrong by noticing this dog. If he’d ignored it, he’d be okay. If he’d pampered it, he’d be okay. But any course of action between those two extremes makes him a shitheel? That seems very arbitrary, to me.
You don’t have to “pamper” the dog, whatever that means. But once you take it off the street and assume control of it, you assume an obligation to supply it with food and water.
This site shows pics of the dog. That dog was on the way out, even if you had fed him ground sirloin and raw eggs he probably wouldn’t have survived. You don’t starve to death in one day.
shrug
I think the artist made his point rather well. The picture of the people, drinking and socializing all around the dog certainly makes me feel more disdain for “them” than for the artist who pointed out to the world its own apathy.
I probably would have fed the dog if I had something to give. But then, I’m a fat American dog owner who doesn’t see starving animals on the streets very often. So not only am I a dog person, but I am not desensitized to the sight of an animal suffering so badly. Where this museum is, people see these starving animals so regularly, they’re invisible.
And if he’d left it on the street, it would still not have access to food and water, correct? So shouldn’t he still be a shitheel if he’d left it where it was?
Huh? 4 AM? Where do you think I live?
I don’t see why that’s necessarily true, in this specific circumstance. It wasn’t a beloved family pet, it was a stray that was going to die soon anyway. He just changed the venue of its death. I don’t see anything morally wrong with that, at least no more so than just leaving the dog to die in the street.
Except, if the reports are accurate, there was food right there in front of it, spelling out a message. Yes, the dog couldn’t reach it, but the point is that everybody else who looked at the dog could. Anybody who could read the message could feed the dog. What was the message? “You are what you read.” You’re reading this. Here’s the message. Here’s the food. Here’s the choice. Will you do the compassionate thing, and take the risk of helping even though society says it’s not your job? Or will you turn away, because it’s really not your problem, and it’s not worth the effort of helping a being in obvious need?
Bear in mind also that this guy is an artist from Central America, whose governments have been known to get kicked over on occasion for getting too touchy-feely with socialist ideals. I think that might also be germane to the exhibit.
I don’t know. Maybe. It survived this long. Surely there was some access.
If I see an animal in distress I try to help it. Usually I do not succeed, because I can not get near it. But if I can, I attempt to relieve the suffering.
He took possession of it, and guaranteed that it would not have access to food and water.
Cafilornia? Maybe I’m confused. Won’t be the first time.
Once the animal was in his charge, it was his moral responsibility. It was his choice to either feed it and give it water, or not. He chose not. That makes him an asshole in my book.
Screw the message. He chose to neglect a suffering animal. It was in his power to relieve the suffering. Instead, he allowed it to suffer more so that he could make some kind of arcane point. If you want to indict everyone else who neglected it, fine. That absolves the “artist” of exactly jack shit. Had he fed the dog, and taken it to a vet, “everybody else” would not even be in the picture.
Damn, Miller. My sleep patterns have been crazy lately. I get on 24 hour jags, and then sleep for forever. I just woke up and thought it was 7AM. Too weird.
Ah, but he didn’t do that, and so “everybody else” is in the picture. He took the dog to a place where many people could view it, and provided a big pile of dog food right there. All someone else-- anyone else-- had to do was take that final little step. And no one did, and the dog died.
Just like you are making a choice to do nothing about those stray cats in your neighborhood-- not necessarily by feeding them directly, but perhaps by donating to shelter programs, stray neutering services and the like. You’re making a choice to mind your business, and it may be an understandable choice, but it’s still a choice. When too many people choose to act that way, dogs and people starve in the streets.
That’s what we’re led to believe happened to the dog, anyway. Personally I have my doubts, and suspect that the exhibit may not have gone exactly as planned. As stated before, I have found it nigh impossible to keep a mixed group of people from trying to feed animals anything, even conventionally inedible substances. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the animal had died of metabolic shock because it went from a starvation diet to a sudden massive intake of salty cheese crackers and other finger food. Of course that wouldn’t really jibe with the artist’s intent: “This dog was intended to represent the poor and downtrodden of the world.” So how did it die? “Er… from an overdose of kindness and generosity.” I can understand why he might want to avoid those questions.