Artist ties up dog in gallery, let's it starve to death while gallery goers watch (warning: graphic)

[HamdenRice]

A Central American artist named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas has set off an internet firestorm with an exhibit of what seems to be a work of conceptional art -- tying up a street dog in a gallery in Costa Rica and allowing the animal to starve to death while gallery goers watched.

Vargas apparently saw the sick, malnourished dog in a poor neighborhood. He paid several local children to help him catch the dog. He then tied the starving dog up in the gallery while patrons passed through the exhibit. Some gallery goers asked him to free the dog, but he refused and he instructed the clientele not to feed the dog.

As they entered the gallery, gallery goers were greeted with a cryptic sign, "Eres lo que lees," which means "you are what you are reading." The title was spelled out in dry dog food.

The dog died the day after the exhibit. A blogger page, seemingly by Vargas, documented the work:

http://elperritovive.blogspot.com/

Interpretations of the work of art vary wildly, such as on these two art related boards:

http://www.popgive.com/2008/03/since-when-starving-dog-to-death-is.html

http://www.theginblog.com/2007/10/artist-chains-up-dog-until-it-dies-is-this-art-or-animal-abuse/

Some see the exhibit as an extreme Milgram experiment -- in other words, the gallery goers' blind obedience to Vargas's command that the dog not be fed shows that people will essentially allow an innocent animal to be killed, because of their proclivity to "follow orders." Others saw the work as a protest against the cruel treatment of dogs in Central America, where street dogs are considered to be little more than vermin. Most internet opinion, however, is simply outraged by what is considered the artist's cruelty.

Photographic images of the starving, sickly, scarred dog -- referred to as perrito ("little dog") and named "Natividad" ("Nativity") -- documented the dog's final hours:

Gallery goers pass by the dying dog:





Street dog, Natividad, mostly skin and bones, tied up in the gallery:







Natividad, severely weakened by starvation, closes his eyes:



The title of the show: You are what you are reading (ie dogfood):