A museum spokesperson said piece is purchased with funds given in honour of the show Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World.
A Case Study of Transference, 1994 г. Source: Xu Bing.
In September 2017, the Guggenheim Museum in New York was severely criticised first by animal rights activists for its plans to display artworks which they found cruel and later by media for self-censorship over criticism.
The video A Case Study of Transference, which will soon be added to the museum’s collection, was created by artist Xu Bing in 1994. He filmed two copulating pigs, with their bodies covered with false Chinese characters and English words, Artnews reports.
The museum doesn’t acquire other two works removed from the 2017 show – Huang Yong Ping’s Theater of the World (1993) and Sun Yuan, Peng Yu’s Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other (2003.
The first piece owned by the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi was partially displayed in New York. Theater of the World is a transparent terrarium with insects and reptiles consuming one another. In New York, the museum displayed an empty cage with a curatorial note explaining the decision not to show the piece completely because of cruelty to animals.
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