You Are What You Read written by 20106 Kim Hae-min

 

Eres Lo Que Lees

In October 2007, there was an artist who brought an abandoned dog and tied it in the exhibition hall. He held an exhibit that did not give it water and food.

Guillermo Vargas (also known as Habacuc), from Costa Rica, asked some children to pick up a dog that had nowhere to go and then he displayed it in a corner of the exhibition hall with a chain. On the top of the wall behind the dog, he made a sign out of dog food that said, “Eres lo que lees”.

No one released the dog or gave it something to eat, because of the general gallery's etiquette. After the exhibition, Habacuc posted on his blog, “Maybe the dog is dead.”

Habacuc revealed plans to reopen the same exhibition at Bienal Centro Americana in 2008.

Hundreds of thousands of people were angry with him, and about 4 million people signed a petition to stop his unethical display.

 

Most Alive on that Day

As criticism mounted, Habacuc’s blog stated, “The dog received more attention than ever was the most alive on that day.”

 The second exhibition had a sign next to the dog, “Someone who wants to help the dog can take him.”

 Soon an elderly couple eagerly adopted the dog. After the artist handed it over to them later brought another dog and put it on display. Guests took the dogs on display one after another. All ten abandoned dogs prepared by the artist were adopted.

A few days later, as he continued with exhibitions, the press suspects he may have organized these exhibitions to resolve the issue of abandoned dogs, but he went into hiding, leaving only the words “It is over.”

A few months later, a strange phenomenon occurred. Thin and frail dogs started to be left unattended in parks around the Bienal Centro Americana.

 

Hypocritical Sheep

 

Why did Habacuc hold such an exhibition?

He says he was inspired by the exhibition from a video of a homeless man.

A video of the man dying of attack by two guard dogs while attempting to break into someone else's house, and no one around him appeared on the camera angle helped him.

Only the public who had access to the video on the Internet felt sympathy for him and hated the incident. Habacuc said his goal was to elicit such reactions from people through his work.

The result was successful. People who were not interested in abandoned dogs dying of hunger on the streets threw their sympathy to the dog in the clean exhibition hall.

Habacuc used this.

The hypocrisy of the people completed the work.

 

Art or Crime?

Critics of his exhibition said it is very unethical to use a dog that is starving to death, and it can never be art. It is natural that many people react badly to his art because animals are considered as creatures which can feel pain.

The outrage that ensued over the Internet and via mass media outlets culminated in a petition that was signed by over four million people worldwide, calling for the artist to be boycotted from the Central American Biennial Honduras 2008 and for criminal charges to be filed against him.

But considering that the abandoned dogs used in the exhibition actually starved for only three hours and didn't die, it could be an effective social experiment to recognize human duplicity.

Wouldn't it be considered as art for an artist to deliver the message he wants to convey to the public?