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I am not usually inspired to write about something (in my opinion) so silly, but the uninformed furore over alleged cruelty during an art exhibition has truly bothered me.

As the story goes, a Costa Rican artist named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas used a stray dog as part of an art exhibition held last year at the Códice Gallery in Managua, Nicaragua. The artist tethered the dog to the wall, without food or water, while the Sandinista anthem was played backwards and a massive incense bowl filled with crack cocaine burned nearby. The entire spectacle appeared under words made out of dog food: “Eres Lo Que Lees” (You are what you read).

Chaining a dog to a wall without food or water is certainly controversial, but perhaps those outraged by this story should look into how the dog was actually treated. Yet this is where the events gets fuzzy…

If you believe innumerable blogs and YouTube videos, the dog was kept tied up for several days before the poor animal died of exhaustion in the exhibition as apathetic chardonnay-sipping onlookers casually passed by. Inevitably illustrated by some pictures of a rather pathetic-looking, unhealthy dog, one can only imagine the kinds of vitriolic comments directed at this “artistic animal killer” on the dozens of blogs I read through. (more…)