*scratching my head* HUH???

I hate to argue what is and isn't art. There have been times when I've argued with people that some contemporary art, such as a single blue dot on a canvas, isn't art because it really doesn't display much thought or creativity. But as time has passed I've really come to the conclusion that art is what you make it to be.

However there are times when something gets called "art" where there is absolutely no reasoning that can justify that claim. For example: Guillermo Habacuc Vargas's "Eres lo que lees."

In short, the artist took a stray dog from the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica, and tied it up in a gallery and let it starve to death. Literally the dog was just tied in a corner and left to die while people came in to view the other art and look at the dog like it was a brilliant installation.

Here is an except of what the artist had to say about it at one time:
"Hello everyone. My name is Guillermo Habacuc Vargas. I am [30] years old and an artist. Recently, I have been critisized for my work titled "Eres lo que lees", which features a dog named Nativity. The purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. In my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought.

Now, if you publicly display one of these starving creatures, such as the case with Nativity, it creates a backlash that brings out a big of hypocrisy in all of us. Nativity was a very sick creature and would have died in the streets anyway."

Now here is the main problem with his idea. If you want to show that this cruelty exists and people ignore, then you should take pictures of them in the streets. Pictures of people walking past. Or you paint them in an original way. You DO NOT however tie one up in a gallery for people to watch it die.

To say that this dog was sick and going to die anyway, doesn't justify putting it in a gallery to die just to call it art. Okay. Okay. Bravo you proved that people don't pay attention, but how in the fuck is letting a dog die while on display in a gallery art?

Even tho the dog might have died in the street, it was still free to try and survive. It is Darwin's Theory of Evolution... survival of the fittest. It has the opportunity to fight. But if it is locked up... on display in a gallery, you have taken away its opportunity to fight to survive.

True, it makes a dramatic statement. And art should be bold and dramatic. However killing a living creature to make a dramatic statement isn't art... it is just simple cruelty.