The Political Inquirer

Although the details are unclear, apparently Guillermo Vargas, a Costa Rican artist, used a suffering dog in an art exhibition last year. He paid some kids to catch a stray, tied it up on a short leash in an art gallery , and refused to give any food or water. Hundreds of visitors passed by the dying canine while visiting the gallery, and apparently no one said anything. Three days into the exhibition the dog supposedly died.

According to Vargas, he was testing the public’s sensitivity to the suffering of an animal. He wanted to see if visitors would try to help the dog, but they ignored it. He also said that if he had left it on the street to die, no one would have noticed anyway. So, to sum up, a guy displayed a starving dog, let it die, and thus proved that art enthusiasts are also cold hearted.

Judgment on this issue hinges on whether or not the dog actually died. Vargas won’t come clean, but some sources claim that the dog was well treated by the artist, and was only tied up during the three hours a day the gallery was open.  My guess is that Vargas is not Michael Vick, but, so far, it has been impossible to confirm the canine’s fate.

Either way, Vargas is a clever artist whose small exhibition has aroused international attention. Now, I could sit here and rant about how evil Vargas is and how what is called “art” has gone too far, but that is what he wants me to do. He wants me to examine what happened, contemplate my own reaction, and find that despite my disapproval, I might have ignored that dog too. It’s easy to condemn Vargas’s publicity stunt as arrogant, selfish, and harmful.  It’s not so easy to condemn yourself.

The whole thing is twisted, but it’s effective, too.

Humanity’s collective lack of sympathy is not a new phenomenon, but this particular “art installation” depicted it in an extremely dramatic way. Whether or not you agree with his methods, I think the piece sent a powerful message. Hopefully, old Blue didn’t have to die in the process.