Museum pulls controversial animal art due to threats

Link

The Guggenheim Museum in New York has pulled three exhibits featuring animals after receiving "explicit and repeated threats of violence".

Campaigners had complained that the works showed "cruelty against animals in the name of art".
A petition to pull the exhibits had gained more than 500,000 signatures.

The museum said they will not now be shown "out of concern for the safety of its staff, visitors, and participating artists".

One of the works, titled Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other (2003), shows a film of pitbull dogs on treadmills that aren't able to reach each other.

It said: "Such treadmills are typical of brutal dog fighting training regimens, and the mere positioning of animals to face each other and encourage aggression often meets the definition of illegal dog fighting in most states."

Another win for violent threats, and another unfortunate loss for both freedom of expression and art. I'm probably as big a dog (animal) lover as anyone else, but to disrespect art because of my feelings.. man. Art is supposed to be controversial, what the hell is wrong with these people (half a damn million of them). In my opinion, this is no different than those that want to remove statues..

Yep, we're heading down that road alright.. You will reap what you sow!!

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Maybe they should just close these museums. There aren't enough PC cops to patrol all of them.

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

The simple fix is to just put crosses around the dog's necks. Then it becomes religious,specifically Christian and likely offensive anti-Christian if explained right. At that point, the dog art would be allowed to stay and even likely heralded by the same people who hate it now.

Michael Vick endorsed?

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

People are going to protest themselves into a corner and then start protesting against whoever's left. Protest Fight Club.

Saying that, I'm not feeling the love for the Dogs Cannot Touch Each Other and can see why people have objected. It's grim.

Link comes up as "page not found".

A few years ago, there was an "artist", stomping on rats, in the name of art.

If any animals are actually harmed in any of the exhibits, it's not art.

However, dogs on treadmills, I'm not going to worry about too much.
Hopefully they don't run them so much they get sick though.....then that's crossing the line.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thing is that art isn't always about making you feel the love. It may be grim on purpose. The artist may be drawing your attention to the plight of those dogs and the reality of their situation.

The very people upset and offended by it, might have been getting it all correctly because that was the point! And because they can't handle it, they complain and now the piece is gone. It might have been meant to make you feel uncomfortable and bad for those dogs.

Art isn't always about feeling good.

a reply to: snowspirit

Thanks! Fixed it.

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Your link didn't work for me (page not found).

HERE is where I assume you intended to send readers.

ETA: I see you changed it, THANKS!

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thanks for posting that. I actually didn't even see the video.

Grim, sure. But art is in the eye of the beholder. We don't know the intentions of the artist.

Sometimes the most disturbing things leave the most profound impressions. Maybe that's what the artist wanted.

Are people really this stupid Could be the artist made this to raise awareness to the plite of animals .
The first thing poped in my mind is why do we let people do this .
Art has many times shown the horror of the way humans treat each other and animals and art like that is not ment for ooooo and assss it is ment to get you thinking about changing things .

So if the art is offensive why is what it shows less ? your so bussie attacking the art you don't see the dogs ?
Museum's are full of things that show the crulity of humans towards animals and each other .
Ivory taken from elephants carved so nicely how is this any less wrong ?
You dont want to see how you as a human are my advice is stay away form Museum's they are all about them .

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Fascists do fascist stuff.

that art exhibit shouldn't be on display... i would've thought the museum would realize that long before it got to protests and threats of violence.

a reply to: ketsuko

I know and I agree with your overall points. Art can be subversive and has been attacking the status quo for centuries; it's propaganda too. It can be divisive or uniting and adds to the human experience. I love art and Art.

Guggenheim have caved under pressure when perhaps they should have exercised their discernment in the first place. A bunch of barking dogs on treadmills might make a fine metaphor for modern life and that's all I can reach for without more context.

a reply to: ketsuko

That's like saying that it's ok for artists to beat women up to show the plight of battered wives.

originally posted by: fiverx313
that art exhibit shouldn't be on display... i would've thought the museum would realize that long before it got to protests and threats of violence.

Why not? Does it make you feel bad? Don't you think people should see how mean we can be to animals?

This is much better than an exhibit that was made in a European museum where a goldfish was put in a blender and onlookers could decide to blend the goldfish ... or not.

Then there was this guy who may have deliberately allowed a starving street dog to starve to death while gallery onlookers watched it happen in the name of art.

This is just video. We don't know the circumstances surrounding the video or what was done or what even happened to these dogs. But at least they are just being cruelly teased and none of the other vile things you can find people doing to animals all over the net. I believe if you look around, you can find footage of some Indian villagers burning either a leopard or a tiger alive because they'd caught it.

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Is it saying anything more eloquently than a hamster on a wheel? If it's pitching at the human condition being one of hard work, it's been done.

Perhaps the artist is raising the question of people and how they connect? Always running towards each other and never making soulful contact? Who knows? The sentiment has been expressed so many times before it's still hard to justify the video.

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: fiverx313
that art exhibit shouldn't be on display... i would've thought the museum would realize that long before it got to protests and threats of violence.

Why not? Does it make you feel bad? Don't you think people should see how mean we can be to animals?

This is much better than an exhibit that was made in a European museum where a goldfish was put in a blender and onlookers could decide to blend the goldfish ... or not.

Then there was this guy who may have deliberately allowed a starving street dog to starve to death while gallery onlookers watched it happen in the name of art.

This is just video. We don't know the circumstances surrounding the video or what was done or what even happened to these dogs. But at least they are just being cruelly teased and none of the other vile things you can find people doing to animals all over the net. I believe if you look around, you can find footage of some Indian villagers burning either a leopard or a tiger alive because they'd caught it.

that's pretty much my point, thanks for stating it so eloquently. we can find plenty of images of animal abuse and if an artist collected that into an exhibit that would be one thing -- but to deliberately put animals in a stressful situation to make your art is cruel and unnecessary.

a reply to: Kandinsky

That's the beauty of art, isn't it? It's all in the eye of the beholder. Your interpretation is actually a great one. Whatever the intentions of the artist were, he definitely got a visceral response.

a reply to: fiverx313

Question: Did the artist do it himself or did he go where it was being done? If he did it himself, that's a lot of effort to simulate what looks like a dog-fighting training technique.

How many dogs and how many treadmills are there?

I ask because the video to me looked documentary style as if he took something in progress like a photographer documents things.