I was browsing the net a few days ago and stumbled upon this horrendous photo:
Now believe it or not, that dog tied to a wall is actually an art exhibit. That was made by an artist by the name of Guillermo Vargas also known as "Habacuc." He put up his exhibition in late 2007 at an art gallery in Costa Rica. The story of this incident varies from person to person and site to site. But the long and the short of it is, the dog was captured by a couple of street children under the command of Vargas so that he could tie it to a corner with no commodities and leave it to die in plain sight of the gallery's visitors as part of his exhibit. The whereabouts of the dog (named "Natividad") is undetermined. The gallery's director claims that the dog had run away and Vargas himself claimed that the dog had actually died of starvation. Nonetheless, it is speculated that Vargas would be selected to represent Costa Rica in this year's "Bienal Centroamericana Honduras" to recreate this exhibit in front of a whole new audience. This has since been a cause for concern and raised a petition to disallow any such harm to other dogs.
The fact of the matter is, most blogs and news articles would only publish my first paragraph. Leaving readers with a terrible taste in their mouths about Guillermo Vargas; and that is totally acceptable since this act is most certainly inhumane. But looking at it in another perspective --that of the artist's, I can seem to find a good eye-opening lesson in this.
A solid point I can get out of this can be summed up in two simple words: Hypocrisy and Apathy. Had that same dog wandered around the city for the rest of its short and insignificant life, would anybody actually care for it? There is a reason why dogs like these wander around in the city, it is because nobody pays attention to them. If I can give Mr. Vargas any consolation, it is his successful effort in driving this point to people's minds. The bitter truth is, it took an act like this to get people involved in animal rights. Sure Vargas could've written a book instead, but would you actually sit around your living room reading about some tree-hugger's ranting about the mistreatment of animals when you've got cable TV and a computer with high-speed internet right next to you? I would assume you readers out there aren't naive... Of course you wouldn't.
I'll make this clear and I don't want people criticizing me about this. I do not condone Guillermo Vargas' actions nor do I reflect any of his opinions. I was merely pointing out what good (if any) this incident has brought to society. I hope this animal awareness thing isn't some "Ningas Cogon" thing where it just dies out faster than it started. To people who want to sign the petition click Here.
