Criticism came over using animals at the exhibition Art and China After 1989. The newspaper’s editors think the museum shouldn’t have pulled artworks from the show.
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other, a seven-minute video. Photo: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana
Critics mainly attacked three works in which animals were used in the name of art. Animal rights activists found cruelty against animals in the works. The first video features two heavily tattooed copulating pigs. Another video shows eight agitated American pit bulls facing each other on non-motorised treadmills. The third work is a dome filled with hundreds of insects and reptiles hunting each other and dying.
Xu Bing, A Case Study of Transference, 1994. Photo: Xu Bing
The New York Times asks if the museum should have agreed with critics so easily to remove important artworks, depriving viewers of the opportunity to decide how to take the works – as “an apt spectacle of globalization’s symbiosis and raw contest” or “sick stuff” as a visitor said. The museum’s director Richard Armstrong decided to pull three works from the exhibition, explaining it was a response to “explicit and repeated threats of violence”. He says the museum wants to guarantee “the safety of its staff, visitors and participating artists”.
Huang Yong Ping, Theater of the World. Photo: Huang Yong Ping/Guggenheim Abu Dhabi
The newspaper thinks the safety of visitors could have been ensured by an increased police presence or other ways, but removing artworks means to self-censor the show over criticism. The works may seem controversial, but they raised important questions. For example, cruelty in the videos addresses the problem of factory-farmed animals. However, the museum left visitors without the opportunity to ask questions, thus depriving art of its main function – provoking debate and raising issues.
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