Stopping Guillermo Vargas Habacuc..starved dog to death as "art"

[Me]

This is so digusting it makes me sick. This man starved a dog to death in an art gallery. This is not art it is cruelty. Please sign the petitions available to hep stop this man.

Pictures and info available at aspca group
http://aspcacommunity.ning.com/group/stopping

Artist Guillermo Vargas - Habacuc
http://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/6831.html
LATELY, a number of emails have been doing the rounds, condemning the actions of the artist, Guillermo Vargas ‘Habacuc’.

Last year, the Costa Rican ‘artist’ is alleged to have paid some children to chase and catch an abandoned dog. He is said to have tied the animal by a very short rope to the wall of an art gallery in Managua and left it there for several days, without food or water, until it died.

During this time, many people visited the art gallery, paying absolutely no attention to the torment of the dying dog.

Photographs of the so-called exhibition can be found on the Internet.

The prestigious Central American Biennial exhibition incomprehensibly decided to consider this barbarous act as art, and Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action at the Biennial of 2008 in Honduras.

In his defence, the artist has claimed that what he was attempting to prove was that those who saw the suffering of the dog just walked on by and that if it had been left on the street to die, no-one would have even known of its existence.

It has also been reported that the dog did not die but escaped, and that it had been fed by Vargas and was only tied up during the gallery opening times. It has not been possible to confirm this.

The Managua exhibition attracted worldwide attention and many people believe it to have been an act of cruelty rather than art. A petition has been started in an attempt to prevent Habacuc’s involvement in the 2008 Biennial and from repeating the spectacle.

If you would like to sign the petition, visit: http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.html

More information and pictures at this link

http://www.theginblog.com/2007/10/artist-chains-up-dog-until-it-die...

[shauna]

Got the story of this bastard from hell as a forward from a friend and cried for an hour as I forwarded it to everyone I could think of. All I can hope is that there is a price on this man's head and someone will tie him up and starve him. I wish I could help do it.

[Palmer Fishman]

Greetings American animal lovers. I'm from the US and live in Managua, where the Habacuc exhibit took place. I will be going with friend-artists who are participating in the Bienal in Honduras. I am a performance artist, and animal sympathizer, and I have a concrete proposal for a performance-action that would be a positive response to this situation.

First, a little background. I agree that the exhibit was cruel and terrible, but it was only making public treatment that goes on in thousands of households and on the streets in Managua. This is an extremely poor country, and very macho. Women and girls are still seen as property, and hence raping them isn't a big deal. There are tons of kids living on the streets because their parents abused them, couldn't afford to feed them, or are drug addicts. These kids sniff glue to ward off the hunger. In this context animals are seen as property and as functional workers, not as pets. Super-skinny horses with open sores pull little wooden carts carrying the garbage of rich people to sort through for sellable recyclables by malnourished, desperately poor people.

So, dogs. Dogs are cheap security guards. Lots of times owners will tie up a dog on a short leash all day for the express purpose of making him more aggressive when he is released at nighttime. The only people who walk their dogs are foreigners, in general. Rich people feed their dogs. Poor people let the dogs fend for themselves. I've seen so many dogs whose ribs stick out I don't want to count.

Spaying/neutering is expensive, and pretty much unheard of. So of course there are lots and lots of 'extra' dogs around, and they live on the streets. Some of them look like they live pretty well, and others look like the dog in the exhibition. There must be thousands of them, tho I'm a bad judge of numbers. They're like squirrels in a US city, they're just part of the environment.

When I rescued my dog Benedicto from the middle of an intersection where he was flopping around after being hit by a car, a lot of people thought I was a wacko. The veterinarian kept calling me 'the Good Samaritan' every time I shelled out more money to pay him. My life partner named him Benedicto because he is surely blessed.

At first we weren't sure we could keep him, and I went looking for an animal shelter, NSPCA (Nicaraguan Society..), but nothing exists. Nothing. Nothing.

This is the context in which the Habacuc exhibition took place. People here were shocked, and there was a hubbub about it, but not as shocked as you all are. The economic and cultural relationship with animals is totally different than what we are used to in the US.

So, my proposal: Last time I was in San Francisco my boyfriend and I walked past an adopt-a-dog event on the sidewalk in the Castro. It was a party! All the dogs, plus volunteers, plus supporters with the dogs they had adopted from previous events. My boyfriend, who is from Honduras, was totally confused. 'What the hell are they doing?'

I would like to organize such an event in Tegucigalpa, to occur right outside the museum of the Bienal on the night of the inauguration. I would make it an unofficial, uninvited part of the Bienal. I would give it a title, like a piece of art, possibly "Respuesta Canina", "Canine Response". I would host it as Palmer Fishman, my performance alter ego who has already done several crazy things here and convinced people they were cool. I would try to bring Benedicto (if I could get him across the border) as a shining example of an adopted street dog.

Such an event would require cooperation from a group of people willing to take responsibility for whatever dogs we take off the street, for preparing them for the event, and doing follow-up, since I live in Managua. I would need to raise some money for vets, vaccinations, neutering?, dog food, collars and leashes, etc. I have never participated in such an event so I'm not sure of all it entails.

The objectives of 'Canine Response' would be to demonstrate a positive alternative to the current situation, a constructive answer back to Habacuc. You can make your point as an artist without participating in the problem.

Ideally there would be institutional follow-up from ASPCA or the global version thereof to create a more humane infrastructure for animals in these countries. Nobody here is going to do it alone. The NGOs and development agencies have their hands more than full with projects for people. ASPCA could create the animal equivalent of development assistance.

Now THAT would make a difference.

If anyone out there has resources, wants to support my effort, or could put me in touch with people here who could help, I would be most appreciative.

Peace

[Connie Whitaker]

I signed the petition to stop his 'art' for lack of a better word. I think he should be put on a chain and starved to death himself. As I said in my petition...stop his stupid gene pool!!!! This less than human person is not an artist. An artist is about beauty...not torture and neglect. He gives real artists a bad name. His 'art' is disgusting, pathetic, and sickening. If people walked by this helpless animal, yet did nothing, they are just as much to blame as he is. IT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT!!! Can anyone get away with starving a person, and calling it 'art'? Can you starve and neglect your family, and call it 'art'? After reading, he claimed his art was to show that people who look at the starving, emaciated dog showed no emotion, as if the dog lived on the street. On the street, he is not tied down. He can survive...there are many wonderful people who would gladly feed a stray dog. Where is this guys head?? Up his A--! On the street, this beautiful dog would not be tied down. He could find food, on the street, But...what can he find on the end of a rope, dying before people's eyes??? There are a lot of sick, uncaring, unemotional people in this world. DO NOT add to it by endorsing animal cruelty, which is all this is. He should be arrested...then tied to a post while we watch him die. I would only hope that people would be as uninterested in his health and well being as they are for this wonderful dog...Thanks for listening...Connie

[Tammy]

I think that if the "artist" has something that he would like to say in his deffense then he should have said it already. At this point he is getting FAMOUS off of the rumors that he did something this outragous. He should be CHARGED, punished in some way. I can see this swinging in his favor no matter what happens. It's a horrible fact. From the first day of the rumors he was "The artist that starved a dog to death" no longer an unknown obscure artist that no one knows.

[pat]

Listen the only way to stop this is if we overwhelm the costa rican government...write your congressman and senator urge to cut all US funding and support to any country that allows and supports this type of inhumane activity, contact all of the cable and network programs to urge them to put this issue front and center...get organized and pick a mouth piece to discuss with anyone willing...all life is precious.

[Palmer Fishman]

The incident took place in Nicaragua, not Costa Rica.

Since my first posting I have organized with the Nicaraguan Society for the Protection of Animals, APA, and am actively seeking financial support for their efforts, which include fighting for a law to protect animals, outreach to school children to change the culture of violence and neglect toward animals, and spay and neuter and medical clinics for dogs, cats, workhorses, farm animals, etc.

If any of you want to take direct, concrete, helpful action, please make a donation to the APA via Humane Society International, or WSPA. Both are getting more actively involved in the region. Please don´t get so lost in your anger or sadness that you fail to do what is within your power to actually make a difference. I LIVE IN MANAGUA AND I JUST RESCUED ANOTHER STREET DOG IN A VERY POOR NEIGHBORHOOD THAT HAD APPARENTLY BEEN DELIBERATELY STABBED, THEN LEFT STRUGGLING AGAINST DEATH, INFECTED AND STARVING, ON THE SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF A PHARMACY. My friends and I went to the police about the two dogs in the other photo. Their owner was starving them in retaliation for their failure to prevent a break-in at her house. The police said there was nothing they could do.

The Nicaraguan government is completely messed up and distracted by political infighting, and Ortega just said he doesn´t care the the US cut off $64million of poverty reduction aid in protest of fraudulent elections. So the governments are pretty much useless. You, however, are not.

Please do something in addition to venting.

[debby]

The animals are also our friends and individuals of the Universe. Our Universe must have its constitution for the caring of all useful creatures who cannot cumminicate but have sense to live. Should there be a unique regime of the Universe for useful creatures and nature sympathy words