26 Comments

1. June 9th, 2012 / 3:46 am Brooks Sterritt—

   it made me lol

2. June 9th, 2012 / 3:58 am j orloski—

   1st? 2nd?

3. June 9th, 2012 / 4:12 am Brooks Sterritt—

   2 Basquiats

4. June 9th, 2012 / 7:21 am marshall mallicoat—

   This doesn’t seem true, tho. Seems like there are other “pieces” that last forever. Many “pieces” of the form “having done X” would work, I think.

   If I had a “piece” that was “Having Lived Past 18” or “Having Been to Colorado,” that would “last forever” too, I think. It would just have to be something done that can’t be undone (like death).

5. June 9th, 2012 / 9:40 am Anonymous—

   emperor’s new clothes!!!

   [just kidding. not a reference to art on the internet w/o that being said in comments.]

   what museum?

6. June 9th, 2012 / 10:55 am deadgod—

   my kid fingerpaints better slogans than this!!!

7. June 9th, 2012 / 11:03 am deadgod—

   But you’re going to die anyway.  Not dying ever would be a pretty cool “piece”.

   And, continuing in marshall’s vein, killing someone else would be a lasting “piece”, as well — and one you could turn into a diptych, a trilogy, a multigenerational saga, ‘me over seven decades’, a century of connected but unrepeatable “pieces”, others could do sequels from your notes… it could be a franchise.

8. June 9th, 2012 / 12:56 pm Trey—

   I think you’re onto something, especially at the last there. I think this piece is trying to get people to kill themselves (I mean, maybe it’s not *actually* *really* trying that or whatever, but bear with me) and that it’s being dishonest in that way. I mean, killing yourself is permanent or whatever, but making art that makes someone else commit suicide is incredible.

   if I wrote something that made someone kill his or herself that would be, I think, a sort of pinnacle. I’m not sure how I would top that.

9. June 9th, 2012 / 2:05 pm deadgod—

   Inspire genocide?

10. June 9th, 2012 / 2:47 pm Brooks Sterritt—

    Haha. It was at the Chrysler (VA).

11. June 9th, 2012 / 2:49 pm Brooks Sterritt—

    That sounds similar to Guillermo Vargas, who supposedly starved a dog in a gallery as a performance piece. Though I actually don’t know if that was a hoax or not.

12. June 9th, 2012 / 2:59 pm postitbreakup—

    hope so

13. June 9th, 2012 / 3:34 pm deadgod—

    That’s hideous.  That should be on the Marie Calloway threads:  hunger artistry.

    You know, read backwards, that placard says kill someone who darts ahead of you then slows down.

14. June 9th, 2012 / 4:58 pm O—

    You first, asshole.

15. June 9th, 2012 / 5:19 pm shaun gannon—

    oh man that owns

16. June 9th, 2012 / 5:31 pm Anonymous—

    tom otterness def shot a dog as part of a video performance thing, think in the 70s.

17. June 9th, 2012 / 6:52 pm Brooks Sterritt—

    wow. that is horrible, but sort of fascinating in a way. i wonder if he made the argument that killing for art was just as (or more) justifiable than killing for food. tons of older films have incidental animal cruelty just due to lack of protections at the time.

18. June 9th, 2012 / 7:12 pm Frank Tas, the Raptor—

    Wasn’t that something, like, the dog was on display, and anyone who saw the piece could simply free the dog if they wished? A commentary on people taking art more seriously than moral responsibility?

19. June 9th, 2012 / 7:19 pm Brooks Sterritt—

    Yeah, that was the Vargas one, supposedly in Costa Rica. The way I heard about it was some online petition against it a few years ago, but I never really found out if it was real.

20. June 10th, 2012 / 11:44 am jtc—

    glad this is in a museum somewhere. also deadgod has a kid…

21. June 10th, 2012 / 6:06 pm Steven Pine—

    in my imagination i wrote a novel wherein a pop artist was really just a serial killer with a cult following, of course this was all happening in Japan and there was underground shows where pictures and films were distributed via bittorrents all of it covered by the media which presented both sides to the viewing audience – the predictable police and equally predicable fan boys.

22. June 10th, 2012 / 7:34 pm Ifyr Fiphifive—

    sign for Right To Live on the bus read “hard times pass, abortion lasts forever”

23. June 10th, 2012 / 9:03 pm deadgod—

    abortion lasts forever

    pollution is abortion

    deregulation is abortion

    health-care-for-profit is abortion

    poverty is abortion

    compulsory incubation aborts women

    LIFE IS A SLOGAN

24. June 11th, 2012 / 1:26 pm M. Kitchell—

    omg can we please stop perpetuating the vargas piece as some terrible affront to humanity when really all he was doing was trying to draw attention to the fact that there are 40,000 starving dogs on the street that all bougie humans ignore and/or shoot

25. June 11th, 2012 / 1:57 pm Brooks Sterritt—

    I think the piece is interesting. And ‘humanitarian’ aversion to it is probably a limited response for sure. I never knew what the intent was–is his artist’s statement somewhere?

26. June 11th, 2012 / 3:10 pm deadgod—

    The Raptor’s gloss makes clear that the Vargas piece was not a display of a dog starved to death – which would be horripilating to watch, for some – , but rather, a display of “bougie” willingness to feed a dog not one’s own.

    Maybe we can have fewer bourgie omg squeals in criticism of our “bougie” squeamishness?