Jane Perlez
BEIJING — The signature work at "Art and China After 1989," a highly anticipated show that takes over the Guggenheim on Oct. 6, is a simple table with a see-through dome shaped like the back of a tortoise. On the tabletop hundreds of insects and reptiles — gekkos, locusts, crickets, centipedes and cockroaches – mill about under the glow of an overhead lamp.
During the three-month exhibition some creatures will be devoured; others may die of fatigue. The big ones will survive. From time to time, a New York City pet shop will replenish the menagerie with new bugs.
In its strange way, the piece, called "Theater of the World," created in 1993 by the conceptual artist Huang Yong Ping, perfectly captures the theme of the exhibition: China as a universe unto itself, forever evolving and changing into a new order. It also sums up a sense of oppression the artists felt from 1989 to 2008, as they were making these works.
Many of the more than 70 creators were born in China, yet like Mr. Huang — who fled the country in dismay after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on Tiananmen Square — they reject the label "Chinese." One paradox: The artists appreciate the big splash on Fifth Avenue but express mixed feelings about a nation-themed show. Most consider themselves international artists who have contributed mightily to the global avant-garde art movement.
"Whether artists are Chinese or French is not important," said Mr. Huang, who lives and works outside Paris. "I think the duty of the artist is to deconstruct the concept of nationality. There is going to be a day when there is no concept of nationality."
The curators have selected nearly 150 pieces of sometimes shocking, often scruffy experimental art — video, installation, photography, performance — that questions authority, and uses animals (on screen) to highlight the violence of humankind. ("Theater of the World" caused a stir in Vancouver in 2007 when Mr. Huang included scorpions and tarantulas; he withdrew the piece from the show there rather than comply with requests to remove those particular creatures.)
The emphasis at the Guggenheim is on conceptual art. There are few oil paintings, and none of the flashy visages of big faces of the political pop school of the 1990s and early 2000s that fetched skyhigh prices at auction.
"We felt the whole concept of contemporary Chinese art needed to be exploded," said Alexandra Munroe, the lead curator.
The chronology covers two distinct periods: the political repression after Tiananmen and the economic boom in the 2000s. In the aftermath of the protests, the government banned installation art. That provoked conceptual artists to stage furtive shows in anonymous apartments. Artists struggled. Many escaped abroad, came back, went out again. There were almost no galleries and little money to be made.
By 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization, opening its doors to the global economy, the government understood that art could be China's calling card. Money poured into places like the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Commercial galleries popped up in Beijing and Shanghai.
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were staged as China's coming out party. Many artists dismissed the celebration, preferring to concentrate on government corruption and the demolition of charming old Beijing. But the Games did help to open the eyes of outsiders to China and its art scene.
Soon after the opening at the Guggenheim, the Communist Party will hold its national congress in Beijing, a conclave set to anoint the current president, Xi Jinping, for a second term. The uninhibited avant-garde art at the Guggenheim will offer a jagged contrast to Mr. Xi's stiff internet censorship, and repression of human rights that keeps some of China's artists — including perhaps the best known, Ai Weiwei — from living and working in their homeland.
Only nine female artists appear in the show, a poor representation that the curators say they are acutely aware of. One of the nine, though, is Xiao Lu, who achieved notoriety when she fired a pellet gun at a sculpture at a Beijing exhibition in 1989.
The few works by women is a reflection of the male-dominated government-run art academies of the period, Ms. Munroe said. The teachers were mostly men who wielded disproportionate influence with their power to dole out studio spaces, video equipment and paints. Most of the students were men. Now some classes are evenly split between men and women.
"That source of livelihood was closed to a privileged few, and the few were men exclusively," Ms. Munroe said. "The good news is that it has changed."
Some of the artists in Beijing and Hangzhou looked back at their work in the show, the atmosphere during those two decades and how they and the country have changed.
Peng Yu and Sun Yuan
They are known as the bad couple of China's art. Peng Yu, 43, and Sun Yuan, 45, her husband, work in adjacent studios in Beijing's thriving 798 Art District. Three heavy-duty motorcycles are parked outside Mr. Sun's door. Inside, skeletons of a lion, a boar, a griffin and a few other animals decorate the shelves. Ms. Peng's space is smaller, more spartan and contains a bare-bones kitchen.
In 2000, they attracted attention with a performance piece, "Body Link," at a show in Shanghai. Both artists took part in a transfusion of their own blood into the corpse of Siamese twins. The piece was created just after they decided to get married and was "a special kind of coming together," Ms. Peng said.
Ms. Peng revels in her brazen politically incorrect attitudes. The fuss about too few female artists in the Guggenheim show was unjustified. "Personally I think female artists in China are not as hard-working as male artists and their art is not as good as male artists," she said.
The couple's work at the Guggenheim is one of their less radical pieces. The seven-minute video shows four pairs of American pit bulls tethered to eight wooden treadmills. The camera closes in on the animals as they face each other, running at high speed. The dogs are prevented from touching one another, a frustrating experience for animals trained to fight. The dogs get wearier and wearier, their muscles more and more prominent, and their mouths increasingly salivate.
The piece was first shown with the actual dogs appearing before an audience at the Today Museum in Beijing in 2003.
"The piece was so special, it stood out," Ms. Peng said. "The art critics didn't know what to say."
Xu Bing
Xu Bing, 62, a small wiry figure with long black tangled hair and rimless glasses, is a veteran of China's conceptual art movement. Early on, he showed that Chinese artists could be at least as provocative as their Western compatriots.
His work, "A Case Study of Transference," from 1994 illustrates his fascination with the ugly and the primitive versus the beautiful and the classical.
The original version of the work featured two live pigs — a boar and a sow — having sex in front of audiences at one of the early informal art spaces in Beijing. The backs of the pigs were stamped with gibberish composed from the Roman alphabet and invented Chinese characters.
The Guggenheim drew the line on live pigs in the museum, and settled for a video of the Beijing performance, said Philip Tinari, a guest curator, from the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.
Mr. Xu, who has lived in New York for nearly 20 years, spent time on pig farms during the Cultural Revolution. Why pigs and calligraphy? "Animals are completely uncivilized and Chinese characters are the expression of supreme civilization," he said.
His second work in the show deals with 9/11. Mr. Xu lives in a townhouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and when the planes hit the World Trade Center, he watched from across the river. A few days later, he went to City Hall and scooped up dust and packed it into a plastic bag.
On the eve of the Guggenheim show he plans to blow the dust from a leaf-catching machine into a small sealed room. The dust will fall on a stencil of a Zen Buddhist stanza.
Of all the artists in the show, Mr. Xu perhaps best straddles China and the West. He was a young teacher at the Art Academy in Beijing during the protests at Tiananmen. His students created the green foam and gypsum "Goddess of Democracy" that became the protest's symbol for freedom.
"After June 1989, the cultural world became silent, everything became muted, my pieces were not allowed to be shown," he said over Italian espresso brewed in his studio kitchen in Beijing. He fled in 1990. In the United States, the art schools welcomed him. He moved to New York in 1992 and in 1999 he won a MacArthur Fellowship.
"The relationship between China and the world has changed," he said. "After 1989, artists stepped out into the world and they worshiped Western culture. Now younger artists want to stay more in China. They get more inspiration from China, there are more problems to explore."
Yu Hong
When Yu Hong joined the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1984, she was 18 and the only woman among the dozen students in the entering class. It was after the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, and the art schools were coming to life after years in the wilderness.
Ms. Yu, now one of China's most esteemed realist painters, was an instant star. One of the first assignments for her class was to draw Michelangelo's David. Ms. Yu's rendition won first prize. It is still shown to students more than 20 years later.
Her oil painting in the Guggenheim show is entirely different. A self-portrait, the canvas shows Ms. Yu, a few years out of art school in the early 1990s, scissors in hand, snipping her own hair.
The back story is intriguing. Ms. Yu, and her husband, Liu Xiaodong, also an artist, were acting in a low budget movie, called "The Days," about the couple's true-life story as impoverished art teachers in a backwater province in northeast China. One of the scenes included Ms. Yu cutting her own hair. The movie was too bleak for the government censors and has never been officially released in China.
The self-portrait is part of a historical series she began in 1999 called "Witness to Growth," in which she paints herself at the various stages of China's economic growth, juxtaposed against a photograph of the period.
The curators could have chosen a more dramatic work from Ms. Yu. A black and white self-portrait on the wall of her studio in Beijing shows Ms. Yu among the protesters near Tiananmen Square before the tanks rolled in. Adjacent to the canvas is a photograph of the crackdown's aftermath. Dark smoke hangs over the square. The demonstrators' tent city is demolished. Soldiers are on watch.
But such photographs are banned in China. A display of the photo overseas would almost certainly draw protests from the Chinese government.
Zhang Peili
A standout work by Zhang Peili, China's first video artist, shows a female newscaster on China's state television, CCTV, repeating a meaningless screed about water. The woman, Xing Zhibin, with bouffant hair, and an expressionless middle-aged face from the 1980s and 1990s, was China's Walter Cronkite.
Mr. Zhang, 60, was shattered, he said, by the end of the democratic movement at Tiananmen Square. "That left a heavy influence on every Chinese person, and it lasts until today," he said in his small apartment in Hangzhou.
He wanted to find a way to depict the absurdity of the state broadcaster never reporting the monumental event on the square.
A friend of the artist contacted Ms. Xing and suggested that she read the definition of water many times over.
"I lied and let my friend pass on the message that I was doing an education project about water," he said. "I still don't know if she knew that this video of her was actually used for a contemporary art piece."
Mr. Zhang is one of the most influential art teachers in China. He detects less political restlessness among the new generation of students, who are impressed by the new consumer-driven economy.
Still, the huge gap between the rich and the not-so-rich in China is a recipe for future unrest, he said. But for the moment, he went on: "I procrastinate. Society is procrastinating. There is a lot to be done to change society but mostly we just skip it and wait."
Kan Xuan
Visitors climb six flights of stairs to reach Kan Xuan's studio overlooking the red tiled roof of Beijing's ancient Confucius Temple. On a wooden table rests her laptop and a monitor. There is little art on the walls and no signs of her video works. "I like video because it disappears," she said. "It doesn't hang around."
Ms. Kan's two videos in the show are from 1999, and more personal in style than that of her mentor, Zhang Peili. The first, "Kan Xuan! Ai!" catches glimpses of her as she runs through a subway tunnel, weaving in and out among the commuters.
In the second piece, "Post-Sense Sensibility," Ms. Kan surveys an underground art exhibition held in a basement on the outskirts of Beijing. The show was an exuberant, anything-goes outburst of installation art that surfaced after the sullen post-Tiananmen period.
Ms. Kan's hand-held camera captures the outrageous art — pig intestines strung from the ceiling, a stillborn fetus lying next to a human face poking through a bed of ice. Art lovers crowd around the installations, hungry for a new era of unfettered expression.
The documentary is important for the sake of history, Ms. Kan, 45, said. But she long ago moved on.
Her more recent video work focuses on the tombs of Chinese emperors and their courtiers. She has traveled to the far reaches of China, often trekking up mountains to capture the emperors' remains. "When I was traveling I told myself: 'See what you see and feel what you feel.' I have used simple techniques."
Ms. Kan was one of four female artists for the 2007 Venice Biennale but she doesn't care, she said, about gender politics. What's more important, she pointed out, was to remain independent of the commercial galleries. Unable to survive on her creative videos, she has often taken jobs in high-end commercial film production, including filming luxury sports cars on treks from Beijing to northern Italy.
Even though her themes dwell on China, she considers herself an international artist and lives between Beijing and Amsterdam. "I only choose to be in shows where the curators and the artists work hard," she said, "whether it's Chinese artists or not."
Qiu Zhijie
A vast multipaneled ink on paper map by Qiu Zhijie, one of the pioneers of China's contemporary art world, is the only new work in the exhibition.
Over the years, Mr. Qiu has drawn outsized maps that combine fantasy with politics. The Guggenheim commissioned a map that juxtaposed Chinese and global events with the unfolding contemporary art scene in Beijing and Shanghai.
A master calligrapher, Mr. Qiu, 48, learned the discipline of painting characters as a child. His spidery writings, in English and Chinese characters, scrawl across the map that traces the torturous path from Mao to Xi Jinping. Some may see the work's style as resembling Saul Steinberg's maps for The New Yorker.
A figure who straddles the establishment and the fringes, Mr. Qiu works in a cavernous studio outside Beijing. He was still putting finishing touches to the map just weeks before the show's opening. "Coca-Cola back to China, Star Wars, Ronald Reagan," he said, reading out some of the early references.
The map seems politically safe: The Tiananmen Square crackdown is referred to as an "incident," buried in small print. One milestone seems unintentionally pointed in its misspelling. "Reunifiction of HK" reads a phrase, a reference to the Chinese government's plans for reunification of Hong Kong with the mainland. The banner "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is strung across the top of the map, a motif that should please the government.
Mr. Qiu has been criticized in China's social media for leading a government-run academy. "A lot of infuriated netizens say I am bribed by the government," he said. "But if we didn't teach in the art institutions how are the younger artists going to be trained?"
The variety and rebelliousness of the works from the '90s and the early 2000s were long overdue for exposure at a mainstream Western museum, he said.
"The art I see here in Beijing is totally different to what I see in New York," he said. "The big face school of painting gave a fake image of what Chinese art is. The Guggenheim will correct the image."
_____________________________
The Guggenheim---its board of trustees, director, and curators---is one those cultural institutions that subscribe to one variation or another of the avant-garde dictum once expressed by Grace Glueck, a former critic of the Times, who declared that something is art if it is "intended as art, presented as such, and . . . judged to be art by those qualified in such matters" ("Art on the Firing Line," New York Times, July 9, 1989). Her colleague, Roberta Smith, who is now the paper's co-chief art critic, similarly proclaimed (albeit more succinctly): "If an artist says it's art, it's art" ("It May Be Good But Is It Art?" New York Times, September 4, 1988). It should not be a surprise that the Guggenheim is guided by such notions.
It is also not surprising that so many of the comments in this discussion question the art status of the work in question, often placing the term "art" in scare quotes or otherwise suggesting or declaring that it is not art at all (on which, see my replies to some). As my colleague, Michelle Kamhi, and I observed many years ago: "[A] substantial segment of the public" does not embrace such work. Some even "reject it outright, considering it beyond the pale of art." As we concluded: "In the controversy that has ensued between experts and the public on this issue, we maintain that the ordinary person's view, based as it is largely on common sense, is the correct one."
Michelle Kamhi New York City
It is refreshing to see that so many readers recognize what Ms. Perlez apparently fails to understand. The “conceptual” work to be featured in the Guggenheim show, and favored by today’s cultural establishment, has everything to do with shock and protest but nothing to do with “art,” properly speaking. Such readers might like to know that interest in traditional painting is alive and well in China, and includes plans for a translation of my book 'Who Says That’s Art?.'
Gillian Lyons New York
I am so incredibly disappointed with the New York Times and their discussion of this exhibit.
Caging live reptiles to starve and kill each other is inherent cruelty. If a regular guy on the street did this and was found out- he could go to jail, and could end up on the FBI's animal cruelty registry.
This should be no different. Tacking the word art on animal cruelty doesn't take away the inherent cruelty.
You should have discussed this, and you didn't. And because of that, I'm now questioning your ethics.
Ricardo Berkeley, CA
What a horrifying exhibit, and what an indictment of Alexandra Munroe's "vision". Though the animal abuse is but one part of the horror, it is the most overtly manipulative and cruel. We're on our way to New York for a long-anticipated visit to its wonderful museums, but we're striking the Guggenheim off our list.
William Romp Vermont
The anthropomorphizing dog lovers zoomed right in on that one. And they are "pit bulls," no less, the breed responsible for 80% of dog-attack hospitalizations.
Notice that artists are absent among the complainers. Perhaps that's because artists understand that art is communication.
It seems that "animal abuse" is often defined as anything the complainer would not do with their own pets. I see no abuse. If I did, I might excuse it in the name of artistic expression. Because animals are not people, even though people are animals.
My pity goes to the confused, dog-addled public. Your empathy and outrage are misguided and pathetic, particularly in light of other news, which depicts millions of HUMAN BEINGS in desperate life-and-death struggles, or already slaughtered. Your embarrassing outrages are triggered by the plight of DOGS. Try to understand the distinction.
Gillian Lyons New York
Having empathy for animals does not negate having empathy for humans.
That said, having no empathy for animals makes me doubt that you have valid empathy for humans.
You realize they are caging reptiles to let them starve to death and kill each other, don't you?
Katie Washington, D.C.
If I understand you, the suffering of humans is enough to justify more torture and cruelty? You 'pity' the individuals who feel empathy toward a living, breathing creature who has no say in its own treatment because these individuals decide that abusing another life form is somehow enlightening? I'm sorry, I don't see the connection. This is truly on another level. You do realize it's okay to care about both humans and other living creatures?
I don't feel embarrassed at all about my empathy for animals. I actually find it a strength. It gives me more empathy for humans. So I truly feel sorry for people who defend this, and the artist themselves. You've become so 'enlightened' that you're actually lacking a soul if you can call this art, education, communication, or anything related.
DonS USA
A film of dogs trying to attack each other? This is what some are trying to pass off as "art" nowadays? Appalling.
msf NYC
Strange that so many comments focus on one animal video. I was much more repulsed by the same couple's project to run their blood through siamese twins' corpse. But we have sensationalist shocking actions posing as art in the west - think of Koons.
I would still be curious to see the other artists' work + bypass the shallow stuff.
sweetartcat Oregon
Well, if Guggenheim won't remove the "art" (or as I call it: the encouragement of animal abuse), maybe the curator Alexandra Munroe should be removed. And maybe no one should donate money, or visit them. China does all sorts of things that most civilized people consider to be abuses. No art institute should condone such behavior. Boycott.
William Romp Vermont
The dogs seem happy; you seem unhappy. You see abuse; I see dogs. The abuse is in your mind. It's just an art show; they are just dogs.
By the way, boycotts are ineffective and actually beneficial to the target. Any publicity is good publicity, and the boycotters are generally few and ludicrous.
My Little Egg Mystic Island, New Jersey
Shame on the NYTimes for treating the subject matter so casually.
Robert Bowers Hamilton, Ontario
I wonder when high profile art museums such as the Guggenheim are going to grow tired of supporting the recycling of conceptual art ideas from the late sixties and early seventies. In its day it was often interesting, if not moving or very rarely so and sometimes just plain stupid. That was then, decades ago! Now it is all so obvious, formulaic and boring that it makes me feel like sliding out of my chair and taking a nap on the floor. zzzzzzzz
LR CA and PA
Animals in distress that can't consent to the art they're made part of. We have laws protecting living creatures from cruelty. Is it legal to transmit video of acts that would be illegal in the US for the purpose of monetary gain? Is the Guggenheim protected by the laws that protect journalists or those that prosecute online pedophilia?
Arne New York, NY
The comments against animal cruelty forget that our culture has a different perspective as regards animals. And those that condemn the criticism also forget that many Asians do eat dogs and cats. This is a fact many do not want to foreground or acknowledge.
Anne North Carolina
Narcissists, egomaniacs, sadists.....definitely not artists.They could have illustrated their opinionated concept through an artistic portrayal of similar disturbing activities previously performed by others.
Scargosun Philadelphia, PA
When artists lose sight of art and only strive for attention, any way they can get it, this happens. Just because one wants to call themselves an artist does not give them justification to call anything produce 'art'. These people are sociopaths and should be treated as such.
gary brandwein NYC
Shame on the dog owners of the city of New York. When is the last time a dog owner gave way to human on the street pathway,or in a park. Dos owners unleash their animals for their personal pleasure putting the rest of on the defense., They talk and protect,them like they were their children them and owners are perfectly capable of using them a a threat or warning; they ride bicycles with along leashes attach them to baby carriages when running; for the partially blind they are a menace. Best part dog attacks are immune from prosecution. If you strike out against a wayward disruptive animal , you will get a fine and imprisoned. A criminal offense. Hit the owner and it simply a civil suit. Dog bites cost insurance companies and hospitals $35,000 a shot. Rein in dog owners, make then have insurance for their animals .Enforce dog license laws. This exhibition is a helpful and healthful reminder of what dogs are and their owners are..They have no function in the city except to project the neurotic aggression of their owners. Great work in the public interest. Next video should be of dogs barking day and night keeping your family away. And now like the artist I will be subject to a slander suit. Cheers and barks to all. all.
Tom Callaghan Connecticut
Shame on the Guggenheim for having anything to do with this garbage.
Let me pose a question...does anybody really think some vicious saddists will not drool over this getting a perverse "high" on the ideas they CAN PUT INTO USE.
If there is anything left of what was once the Peace Movement they should out 50,000 people in front of the Guggenheim in Protest!
Nancy Stephenson Dallas, Tx
Shock and Sadness only begin to describe the feelings I had as I read this article. As a dog lover, it was the "dogs that cannot touch" that pulled me in to find out more info as I was truly astounded that this would be considered, much less included by Guggenheim. Now that I have read the article, I am more than shocked at the entire exhibit. I realize they mean for it to be "shocking", but seriously, "ART?"? I think not.
To include the piece on the pit bulls continues to be the most disturbing. 2800 pit bulls a DAY are euthanized in the US. Those of us that #standupforpits and are advocates of responsible ownership have just been slapped in the face. Whether they were "physically harmed" or not, this IS depicting and condoning dog fighting and now the Guggenheim has become a advocate of Dog Fighting purely by allowing this piece. I will never visit again nor will I promote any kind of support for the Guggenheim. What a shame and a sad day for us all.
James Farrell Milwaukee
"Who you are speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying." The is no opportunity to connect with the piece, as all you can do is feel bad for the dogs -
not to mention disappointment, and anger for, those that try to validate an ugly spectacle.
Arne New York, NY
“'Personally I think female artists in China are not as hard-working as male artists and their art is not as good as male artists,' she said."
This is an example of a naïve female who supports the patriarchal order. Of course there are not many female artists excelling! Females are discouraged from following their intellectual inclinations at an early age. And when females excel beyond expectations, then they are sexually harassed by colleagues and denied opportunities for advancement. Hence, the lack of interesting art by the male examples in this show. Yeah, maybe nationality should not be enforced. This show is a good example of that failure.
Beverly Bullock NYC
Dog fighting? What is wrong with you Goog? This is so disgusting, so vile. I come to the Goog more often for dance programs than art but NO MORE. You are now anathama to me. I will never donate to you or visit you again.
Isabelle215 Philadelphia, PA
Wait a second, there is no condemndation of the torturing and traumatizing of animals in this article, just a nonchalant description of the exhibit. Where is the Guggenheim's and NYT 's ethical rudder? Not present here. Would this be exhibited if it showed the torturing of children for the sake of art? These dogs are not interested nor understand being art for human entertainment. This is just horrifying. The Guggenheim and the NYTimes are on the wrong side of history.
Liz W Philadelphia
Couldn't have said this any better - my thoughts exactly.
nom de guerre Kirkwood, MO
These "artists" who abuse animals are callous and opportunistic.
Here's a quote from the change.org petition protesting the exhibits:
"In one example, artists Peng Yu and Sun Yuan tether four pairs of American pit bulls to eight wooden treadmills for a live exhibit. The dogs are faced off against one another, running "at" each other but prevented from touching one another, which is a stressful and frustrating experience for animals trained to fight. The dogs get wearier and wearier, their muscles more and more prominent, and their mouths increasingly salivate. At this live 2003 "performance" in China, a video was recorded, complete with close-up shots of the dogs' frantic, foaming faces.
In another example, artist Xu Bing tattooed meaningless characters all over the bodies of two pigs, a boar and a sow, who were put on display, mating, in a museum exhibit in Beijing in 1994. The Guggenheim will feature the video of that "performance" as well.
Finally, this exhibit will feature live animals (reptiles, amphibians, insects) that are trapped in a glass enclosure for attendee viewing. According to the NY Times article, "During the three-month exhibition some creatures will be devoured; others may die of fatigue. The big ones will survive. From time to time, a New York City pet shop will replenish the menagerie with new bugs."
Rebecca Rood September 21, 2017
Whatever intention the artists had to shock, enlighten, inspire, or expand horizons are completely negated by the curiosity and concern for the well-being of their unwilling animal subjects. Were the dogs turned back over to the fighters that turned them? Were the pigs summarily slaughtered after their "performance"? I find it hard to see any more artistic vision than an average ASPCA commercial.
nowadays New England September 21, 2017
I recently visited the Guggenheim for the first time. Now I am nauseated and will never visit again. I had to stop reading. Even the bugs and reptiles should not be used for this purpose.
Lauren PA September 21, 2017
This article needs more information. Who do the dogs belong to? How long are they forced to run? Who monitors their health and cares for social needs? What happens when they aren't being exhibited? Are they comfortable with the crowds they are exposed to?
Animals can and have been used for performance art and sport for a very long time. It's not always abuse. You can train dogs to happily run on a treadmill for 10 minutes, but these "artists" made it sound as if they were taking dogs once used to fight and their fear and aggression for their own gain. I don't care if it's art. You could paint a picture with the blood of children and call it art, but it would still be morally reprehensible.
The artists defense is incomprehensible. What does the Olympics have to do with tormenting dogs?
Laura G North Carolina September 21, 2017
As an advocate against dog fighting, I find the inclusion of "Dogs Who Cannot Touch Each Other" exploitative and egregious. This is not edgy in the vein of Marcel Duchamp or Andreas Serrano, these are living beings. Dog fighting is a felony in the United States, in case you were not aware. In my opinion, everyone who promotes this is an accomplice to felony animal abuse and most certainly an accomplice to unwaranted suffering. What were you thinking??
Caleb Carr New York September 21, 2017
Tough to tell if this article is more profoundly objectionable or profoundly idiotic (the statement that the artists have a "skeleton of a griffin" is a particular howl; did they teach you in art school that griffins are IMAGINARY ANIMALS, something that even Harry Potter fans know?!) but in the end, I think it's more objectionable. ANIMAL ABUSE AS "SERIOUS ART"? SHAME ON YOU, New York TIMES, FOR ALLOWING YOUR "CRITICS" TO PUBLISH THIS TRIPE! Oh, how the mighty are fallen...
Czerny Brooklyn NY September 21, 2017
Another example of the heartless Chinese view of animals as non-sentient beings, and, therefore, open to human exploitation, abuse, and torture. This mentality allows them to torture animals for bogus folk medicine: the prolonged grisly suffering of dogs/cats before slaughter, bears kept in cages for decades with a catheter in their bile duct to "milk" the bile, the consumption of tiger penises and rhino horns for virility. Now this disgusting exhibition of so-called art abetted by the Guggenheim. The soulless Chinese know nothing about art, compassion,or transcendental beauty--years of spiritual oppression has taught them to exalt cruelty and the bizarre and the puerile. These are not artists; they are charlatans and sideshow geeks who are laughing behind the backs of the Western fools who reverently submit to this charade because it's exotic and inscrutable.
Trista California 2 days ago
I am as appalled and nauseated by the abuse of these animals as you are, but the characterizations in your message of "the Chinese" are heartless and soulless is stereotyping and racist. Many, many Chinese are appalled at this animal cruelty as we are and are working to end it, too. Traditional abuses and myths from early times are stubbornly rooted even in modern times and difficult to change, and we in America are not innocent of this.
Actually, our animal farming here in America is about as bad as it can get, despite our efforts, and one could say that "soulless Americans" merrily gorge on animals slaughtered after living unspeakable brief existences. Rather than blanket condemnation of a people, we all have to encourage and support those of every nation who are working to end animal abuse.
This obscene so-called "art" at the Guggenheim shows me no talent or vision -- - shame on that museum for pandering to arrogant exploiters of helpless animals. But the human race in general is still a bloodthirsty species; just look at the many "sporting" combats we attend, shouting for mayhem and actually setting pumped-up fighters at each other to batter sometimes to the death.
nom de guerre Kirkwood, MO 2 days ago
Czerny,
Your comment was spot on until you called the Chinese "soulless". That was a blanket statement indicting 1.4 billion Chinese. Not all Chinese are guilty of these offenses.
ml bishop hailey, id September 21, 2017
This is hideous, bewildering and wrong. Maybe next we could have a video of a child rape with close ups of the child's tears. I don't understand how this is being exhibited. Donors should be fleeing.
TimW Stl 2 days ago
How is that remotely the same thing!
NIcole NY September 21, 2017
This is not ART this is animal cruelty. Ashamed at the TIMES and Guggenheim.... sign petition to this exhibit:
https://www.change.org/p/alexandra-munroe-promote-cruelty-free-exhibits-...
Bruce Wayne September 21, 2017
The worst part of all of this for me is not the celebration, glorification and active participation in horrific animal abuse, It's the fact that the Guggenheim chooses to promote this type of activity, all in the name of "art". Shame on you and shame on anyone who supports these psychotic "artists".
Amy Los Angeles September 21, 2017
Is this art for the sake of cruelty to animals? These artists are nothing more than animal abusers. If the Guggenheim wants to shock us, then they've succeeded. I am shocked and horrified to read that that a museum is willing to show this type of animal abuse. I can't think of many things more cruel than the mistreatment of dogs, pigs or any other animal or human or creature on this earth. I will condemn the Guggenheim for even considering this, let alone it being allowed to be shown as a public exhibition. Please contact the Guggenheim at collections@guggenheim.com and request this show not go on.
jd
September 21, 2017
"The dogs are prevented from touching one another, a frustrating experience for animals trained to fight. The dogs get wearier and wearier, their muscles more and more prominent, and their mouths increasingly salivate." Shame on the "artists" for using animals in their pitch for sensationalism. Shame on you Guggenheim for prompting heinous animal cruelty under the guise of "art".
Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts); Co-Author, 'What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand' NYC September 21, 2017
Makes no sense, as does all of today's pretentious avant-garde art. Therefore, not art.
mclean4 washington September 21, 2017
What Chinese art? I did not know there are artists in China since 1949. Only propagandists are hired by the Chinese Communist Party. I hope someone would sponsor an exhibition of arts of Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. I am saddened by Guggenheim's cooperation with this project. Money talks. Art dies with China. I only visit Taiwan's Palace Museum to see Chinese art.
Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts); Co-Author, 'What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand' NYC September 21, 2017
"What Chinese art?" you ask, seeming to imply that it isn't art. If so, you are right. Money does indeed talk.
Jxnatti NY, NY September 21, 2017
Wow there is a painter in the exhibit...most of the contemporary NYC museums don't even do that anymore....
Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts); Co-Author, 'What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand' NYC September 21, 2017
You are so right. Most contemporary [avant-garde] NYC museums are filled with non-art, not paintings or sculpture by true artists.
Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts); Co-Author, 'What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand' NYC September 21, 2017
True, and they also don't show sculpture. The don't show art, in other words.
Jean Greek Goleta, CA September 21, 2017
At what point did blatant animal abuse become art? Shame on the Guggenheim for condoning animal abuse and shame on the NYT for being complicit. I would have expected better from you both.
Sabrina Kirby Lewisburg, Pennsylvaina September 21, 2017
I agree: torture of sentient beings belongs to a category other than art. Perhaps the piece called "Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other" cleverly avoids strict legal definitions of animal cruelty, but would a similar exposition of human beings thus treated without their consent be acceptable? I think not.
The Fun-duh-mentalist Maryland September 21, 2017
The current crop Chinese artists are very good at copying Western art movements. Conceptual art makes this an easy transition, with half baked ideas being taken seriously because... well, the stance of the creators as 'important thinkers' These artists demonstrate that syndrome in spades. That is the only 'international' thing about their art. Of course the Guggenheim and all of the other 'hip' museums with 'hip' young curators, want to show how 'hip' and aware they are of all of the latest fads of art world fashion. Then, as a natural course of things, all of the culture vultures will rush out to see what they have been missing. Tedious.
Sarah Day Virginia September 20, 2017
I opened this article with enthusiasm. By the time I reached the end, I was struggling with the treatment of animals in several of the displays. In particular, the treatment of the dogs tethered to treadmills is unacceptable. I am beyond disappointed in the Guggenheim's willingness to share the appalling treatment of animals. These artists felt China was willing to toss them aside, but they are quite willing to throw animals aside. We are all in this life together, man and beast.
Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts); Co-Author, 'What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand' NYC September 21, 2017
They are not "artists." In contrast with the avant-garde, true artists don't do such things. They paint and sculpt animals.
Arne New York, NY September 22, 2017
These artworks give us a perspective, though, of our cultural differences.
nom de guerre Kirkwood, MO 2 days ago
Arne,
I'd prefer to gain cultural difference perspective through newspaper articles, not through the perpetuation of animal cruelty in "art" exhibits.
Un comentariu:
Museum Statement—Out of concern for the safety of our staff, visitors, and participating artists, we have decided against showing the art works "Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other" (2003), "Theater of the World" (1993), and "A Case Study of Transference" (1994) in the upcoming exhibition "Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World." Although these works have been exhibited in museums in Asia, Europe, and the United States, we regret that threats of violence have made our decision necessary. As an arts institution committed to presenting a multiplicity of voices, we are dismayed that we must withhold works of art. Freedom of expression has always been and will remain a paramount value of the Guggenheim.
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