In Defense of Guillermo Vargas Habacuc

I'd like to start by expressing my adamant support for the international animal rights movement. This response is by no means an attack on the dignity of any animal or the advocates of their liberation.

Guillermo Vargas Habacuc is an artist who recently hosted an installation in Costa Rica which involved an abandoned dog found on the streets. The dog, Natividad, was chained to a post in a room of the gallery and tragically starved to death, as she was given no food whatsoever.

There is currently a campaign to send a mass petition to Mr. Habacuc, and his work has created a frenzy of angry blogs, myspace bulletins and hate mail directed at the gallery that hosted the exhibition. They want the public to believe that he intentionally starved an animal to death with 'artistic value' as his only reasoning.

The blogs, myspace bulletins and anti-Habacuc propaganda are neglecting to mention the most important piece of information in their preachings. At the other side of the room, in near proximity of Natividad, 'Eres Lo Que Lees' (the title of the exhibition) was spelled out in dog food.

Sadly, the artist's suspicions were brutally proven to be correct. Habacuc wanted to show the indifference of the Costa Rican people and put the hypocrisies of popular movements in widespread view. He wanted to show the anger and media obsession that would follow. He wanted to prove that people would rather write a letter to their congressmen and stir up international anger rather than walking five steps to the exhibition's title and feeding the dog themselves.

It's true that this was an extremely unorthodox, albeit cruel, way of demonstrating a discontent with society, but nonetheless, Guillermo Vargas Habacuc was successful in proving a very, very valid point. People would rather fuel an idea than help a dying creature.

Why did no one pick up the food bits and carry them to Natividad? Why are the same people that visited the exhibition now lashing out at an artist that wasn't even present for the entirety of his own exhibition? Why do we always want someone else to take care of the world's problems instead of doing what we can to conbat cruelties on our own?

I suggest that the hatred aimed at the artist be redirected. It should be aimed at those Mr. Habacuc was aiming for. It should be aimed at the exhibition's indifferent and neglectful attendees, and it should be aimed at the immense hypocrisies within all humanitarian movements.