The Starving Dog Artist: A Diagnosis

I'm asked to comment on psychiatric diagnoses all the time, from Robert Blake by Nancy Grace, to astronaut Lisa Nowak by Soledad O'Brien. I've done the prognosis for everyone from children of polygamist cults to American's Dumbest Criminals on TruTV. For the last two weeks my mailbox has filled with queries about "the starving dog artist."

For those of you that haven't gotten the email, there's one going 'round asking you to sign the petition seeking to prevent Guillermo Vargas from representing Costa Rica in an upcoming multinational art exhibition (Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008). His display of August 2007 in Nicaragua that featured a stray dog captured from the streets and confined on a bare art gallery floor without food, water, or bedding until it starved to death. The artist's goal was supposedly to show the hypocrisy of people's making a sick and ill-fed dog the center of attention at an art exhibit despite the fact that many of them would ignore the same dog on the streets.

Diagnosis: At the very least Vargas has traits of antisocial personality disorder, grandiose and narcissistic personality disorder, and a peppering of delusions.

The line between chronicling cruelty and staging is clear to most. Treating the dog as an object, for "art's" sake shows pathological malevolence. And, though I know I'll get slack for saying this, I'll go so far as to say that dying dog + letters made from dog food on the wall + furnace burning 175 vials of crack + the Sandinista hymn playing backward, does not art make.

His sadism is apparent not only in his treatment of the dog, but in his mocking of the audience. If he had really been trying to make a well thought out point regarding how we choose our charities (which is a fascinating topic) he still might have donated funds toward an overwhelmed local shelter -- or at least let us know about it. Fact is the Humane Society is backed by 10 million Americans, PETA has 1.8 million members, and the ASPCA has 680,000. Are there rules that need to be changed and lives that need to be saved all over the world? Yes. Absolutely. But he doesn't strike me as part of the solution, in any way.

The bottom line is that it is much harder to make art that is inspirational, controversial, and empowering (this hot mess of a show sounded like the leftovers of a meth lab raid). It's much easier to shock people with ugliness or cruelty and then pride yourself that you are misunderstood and edgy. I would guess there is a theme in Vargas' life related to not belonging (with his family and/or with his peers) and he's probably never experienced himself as original, clever, or talented.

Someone called him the "Michael Vick of Art."

Many people have asked me, "What do we do with the sad helplessness that this kind of news makes us feel?" Firstly, stop calling him an artist. Secondly, write hard copy letters to Ministry of Art and Culture of Costa Rica and to museum officials that chose to continue to showcase him. Thirdly, donate to the shelter where the dog was caught and support The World Society for the Protection of Animals. And lastly, go see some real inspiring productions -- something like Koyaniskatsi, or one of Eve Ensler's productions, or you might be able to still get into Burning Man if you hurry.

Comments

[Bearangaria]

Thanks to the media and our times we see starvation,
humiliation, degradation on a daily basis. We KNOW what it looks like.
Most of us out here are doing what we can to END it.
What this "artist" did was present sadistic torture as "art."
How did this "exhibit" elevate or inform us? HOW?
The dog could not free itself. Where were the people who could?
Paint, photograph, sculpt what you will. This person unforgivably
took a life. What shit decided this unconscionable act was "art?"
Who are the parties culpable for this atrocity?
They should be arrested, incarcerated, and starved...on view.

[larry278]

The late Anerican sage & moralist, W C Fields commented that, "Anyone who hates dogs & children can't be all bad.". Has the good doctor given her beyond the grave opinion on WC Fields's sanity?
l lynch

[JohnFromCensornati]

The good doctor addressed your question in her post.

"The line between chronicling cruelty and staging is clear to most."

[nycjmp]

Dear Larry278-
I had heard of WC Fields but did not remember him to be a renowned moralist. So just to make certain it wasn’t a generational gap, I looked him up and the most common description I found was that he was a comedian/actor. Perhaps it would have been more logical and appropriate to quote one of the follow:
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot. Twain, Mark
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Gandhi, Mahatma
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. Darwin, Charles
The moral duty of man consists of imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards all his creatures. Everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty. Paine, Thomas
The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man. Paine, Thomas
The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different. Hippocrates
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that's the essence of inhumanity. Shaw, George Bernard

[mdhatter]

the louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons -- Emerson

[ashabot]

I am outraged by this atrocity. It is not art. It is brutality. Yes, dogs are on the street suffering and starving to death and people do walk past them as though they are not there. I have seen children come up and kick the poor creatures, undoubtedly mimicking adults. So this bastard has stirred up conversation. Then perhaps we should also shackle and starve children in galleries so that child abuse may also be made into art? Documentaries have a place in public discourse but not ritualized savagery.

[NoSillyName]

This "person" is no more an artist then what's her name at Yale.

His action is apparently real and he deserves no better than the same fate. I spit on him.

Her action may or may not be real and she deserves no more publicity.

IMO, they are both vile and beneath contempt. I don't give a damn about their supporters who may criticize me for not "getting it". Hey, I don't want it.

[sarge311]

When I clicked on the link that told about this story and saw the picture of the dog that died because of this motherfucker, I cried. This evil entity that is behind this abomination of an exhibition should be strung up by his privates in a concert arena and starved to death. The fact that someone (thing more like it) could do this to a helpless animal and try to justify it by his twisted logic is the ultimate in perversity and cruelty.
This proves to me what a sick society we have and why the inmates are running the world.
What an incredibly sad story.

[ENK727]

Why was something so sick allowed?

[mdhatter]

"allowed" ?

Everything is 'allowed', it's a free country.

Punishable is another matter. If this is true, I think some rehabilitation is in order.

[amorvincitomnia]

That you for addressing this topic because no one is coherently speaking out on the subject of real torture/murder masquerading as art. The voice of reason has been silenced because many people seem far too afraid that the stock of their hipness or coolness might depreciate. How puerile have we become?

There is a world of difference between an Edgar Allen Poe short story or Brett Easton Ellis novel and an abomination like this. A Hannibal Lecter mentality has no place in the art world or, frankly, anywhere outside an asylum.

If this continues I suppose the perpetrators of the crimes at Abu Graib can claim their acts and the resulting photos are also art. W. can claim that his Weapons of Mass Destruction deception is not unlike Schvarts' abortion hoax, in that the proof exists "only in its telling. This telling can take textual, visual, spatial, temporal and performative forms,"

In view of works such as these it's starting to become clear why there are societies that think of our so-called "culture" as a cancer. This torture and death gratuitously insinuating itself into the arena of art must stop.