Everything you do counts...  

It has come to my attention that all the MySpace pages claiming to be Guillermo Habacuc Vargas have been created by someone other than Guillermo Vargas, but with his knowledge in hopes to stir up controversy - in which we all know he does best. That being said, there is someone among us in the MySpace community that is harassing animal right advocates (emailing, taunting, commenting, etc. and even trying to place spies in the group started up to get him banned from the Bienel 2008).

There has been cause to wonder if in fact this whole thing was a staged publicity act by Vargas set up to start an internet frenzy of outrage just for the sake of doing so.

I would have to say after some frustrating research that I do believe that the exhibit entitled "Exhibition no. 1" was in fact a real thing. It was reported in numerous Costa Rican papers, varying in content, but stating that the exhibit did occur, Vargas did in fact capture a street dog, tie him up to a wall in the corner of the gallery, write the words "You are what you read" on the wall in dog food and at least took pictures of the dog. As for if the dog was not fed, starved to death or was let go is still undetermined. But one thing for sure, this did happen and even if the dog was fed and let go, in my book I think it is still cruelty - for who in their right mind would take a poor, defenseless dog, tie him up, place him in a room full of spectators (no matter if it was a day or 5 minutes), photograph him in various angles, and expose him to ridicule and disgust for any reason? Not to mention it has been reported that Vargas had a large pottery piece (a censer) filled with burning rocks of crack cocaine and marijuana with this animal and patrons breathing the toxic fumes in their lungs during the exhibit.

I urge you all to ignore these impostors among us and keep up the fight to boycott Guillermo Vargas and have him banned from any art event or gallery in the name of animal welfare and justice.

And for those of you who think that this is just a witch hunt, just read the facts published below in various newspapers and form your own opinion. We can't stop you from disagreeing, but we can supply the facts. Either way, we are just trying to bring some justice to the poor dog that was ripped off the streets and had no voice to speak out his protest.

http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html

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Below is the links to the various Spanish articles I made reference (also the crude English translations):

THE NATION (Nacion)
http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2007/octubre/04/aldea1263590.html

Artist tico wrapped in controversy for death of dog at work
Costa Rica, Monday October 4, 2007

The Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas, better known as Habakkuk, is wrapped in a big controversy because of the death of a street dog in "Exhibit No. 1", a show that took place last August in Managua (Nicaragua).

Defenders of animals in Costa Rica learned of his work through a blog yesterday and accused him of cruelty.

What we saw in Managua. As part of his presentation, the artist faced the viewer to a street dog weak, sick and hungry tied to the corner of the room.

The dog died after a day at the exhibition, as was confirmed to The Nation Marta Leonor Gonzalez, editor of the cultural supplement of La Prensa in Nicaragua.

The exhibition also included the phrase, written with dog food, "You are what you read"; as well as an audio with the Sandinista anthem backwards, photos and a burner, which burned 175 rocks of crack cocaine and an ounce of marijuana.

Habakkuk said yesterday that his work was a tribute to Natividad Canda, Nicaraguan who died after being attacked by two Rottweiler dogs in a workshop in Carthage.

"The important thing for me was the hypocrisy of people: an animal thus becomes the focus of attention when you put in a place where white people go to see art but not when they are on the street dying of hunger. The same happened to Natividad Canda, people were sensitized with him until the dog ate him," he said.

Even added: "Nobody came to free the dog nor give food or called the police. Nobody did anything."

When questioned about whether or not he fed the animal, the artist refused to respond.

Why not use other means of expression? "I take what I see ... The dog is more alive than ever because what continues to speak," he said.

Several advocates of animal rights repudiated the work of Habakkuk, asking that they disqualify his exhibit as a work of art and suggested that the artist be excluded from Central Honduras Biennial 2008, and that he will not be one of the six representatives of the country.

"I see that this promotes cruelty to animals in a work of art. Submit a letter to prohibit cruelty in the arts and to make sure this guy does not represent the country in the Biennial," said Gina Malavassi, defender of animals.

Jose Morales, vice president of the Special Unit for Animal Protection and Rescue, said. "The dog was tied and without food; I do not understand how that is art. "

Raymond Schnog, chairman of the Humanitarian Association for Animal Protection, said that he did not see how it was made to starve an animal if the pair had lunch with a cliché.

These organizations are studying the case to see whether there are any complaints.

LA PRENSA (The Press)

http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2007/octubre/05/noticias/revista/219438.shtml

Dog and an controversial art

Great controversy has caused in the region the work of the Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas, known like Habacuc, denominated Exhibition no. 1. The exhibition was presented/displayed the past August in Gallery Codex, in Managua. As it leaves from the exhibition the artist tied in a corner from the room a skinny street dog, ill and with hunger, that it captured in a poor district of the capital and that, according to the Costa Rican newspaper the Nation, died of hunger that night. Also it was included as it leaves from the work the phrase "You are what you read", written in a wall with food for dog, as well as a version of the sandinista hymn the other way around, in addition to a censer in which 175 stones of crack were burned and one ounce of marijuana. Vargas said to the Nation that its work was a tribute to Natividad Canda and it did not mean if it fed itself the dog or and it did not refuse itself to assure or to deny the death of the dog. According to him, the important era to show hipocresía of people and to see how a dog becomes the attention center when it is in a gallery and not when it is in the street. Liliam Schnog, president of the Humanitarian Association for the Protection Animal in Costa Rica, informed to the same newspaper not to include/understand how it was let die of hunger to an animal, if on a par there were a phrase done with food.

THE REACTIONS

In Costa Rica the reactions were not made hope. They opened blogs (pages of opinion in Internet) where people rejected the idea and to others it seemed to them quite creative, because it managed to communicate a message. Alicia Zamora, Nicaraguan plastic artist, consider that the work is valid as soon as generates a reflection in the spectator, who is badly customary to a merely decorative art. "Habacuc seems to me an artist of much respect, in as much it proposes works that generate and wake up a reflection in people; we are customary to works where the artist and the reflection of the social thing it is left hair net ", Zamora said. Juanita Bermúdez, director of Gallery Codex, affirms that as serious person would not allow I mistreat the animal. The director affirmed that the dog ate in repeated occasions and that it did not die, if not that was escaped during the dawn. "It is a work that leaves a message social, definitively it is conceptual art and to people it still costs work to him to digest this type of works", expressed the director. Bermúdez also said that the work of Habacuc is quite enigmatic and little explicit, but that instead of mistreating it, the artist dignificó to the dog when taking it as art to a exhibition of its work, to represent a social reality.

ABC.es

http://www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-06-10-2007/abc/Cultura/la-provocacion-repugnante_1641072053110.html

The revolting provocation

More wood, this is the war of the scandal "artistic". After the polemics of the photography of Nam Goldin of the naked girls now we have the most difficult one still, this is, the demonstration of the cruelty "estetizada". The costa rican artist Guillermo steep Slopes has left to die of hunger to a stray dog in an installation that has mounted in a fair of art in Nicaragua. In a wall he has written, with food of dog, the phrase "you Are what read", adding olfactory and sonorous actions or, better, narcotic, that convert their piece in the peak of the chaotic thing. Thus the hymn can be listened sandinista Al reverse and to attend burns it, in a censer of 175 stones of crack and an ounce of marijuana. I do not please with that cocktail, the known artist with the nickname of "Habauc" trapped a dog in a slum of Managua and he tied him to one of the walls of his demented assembly. The following day the animal had deceased.

Homage to Nativity Locks

Facing the indignation generalized and to the criticisms, the responsible for this lamentable action has come to say that its intention is to go against the social hypocrisy. Among its confused intentions was that of honoring to Nativity Locks, that was attacked in Carthage (Nicaragua) for some dogs rottweiler. "The people -underlines steep Slopes- was not sensitized with that man until they were eaten him the dogs", adding that did neither nobody decide of feeding Al dog that was "exposing", collaborating of that way to his death. As he is logical, the associations of defenders of the animals have disqualified this supposed work of art.

It is really surprising the proliferation of artistic actions that are characterized for their violence as if they trusted in the homeopathic magic. But it is not certain that in all the circumstances "the similar thing with the similar thing be cured". The contemporaries we suffer the "syndrome of Jellyfish", we are, literally, astonished before the all types of screen contemplating horrors without neither our consciences neither our stomachs react. Some artists, become some apprentices of magician, professionals of the rowdy exorcism, they decide to present to what still, inercialmente, they call "middle-class look", revolting or simply criminal things. Their provocations find the conventional answer: the apathy or the alien shame.

The brutal one "work" of Guillermo steep Slopes carries us to think again in the absurdity of the contemporary art. It obsessed by the taboo one, this is, delivered Al delirium to touch and to desecrate what be, does not pay attention to expenses and gestures. All the gesticulations, supportive with the patty of the reality-show, they finish for carrying us to think that would be necessary to recover the critical capacity or, at least, to accept that, in certain occasions, we are right for the indignation. Because the art cannot be the umbrella for the vandalism and, consistently, would not have that to guarantee the impunity. Chris Burden shot against an airplane Al edge of an airport, Santiago Saw filled a synagogue in Germany of unbreathable gases, Teresa Margolles generates vapor with the water that serves to clean the corpses. In some occasion I have qualified to these contemporary artistic forms traveling through Al term "idiotic". And it so happens that instead of leaving us astonished or to cause to think, the "cruel realism" in which is installed Guillermo steep Slopes reveals more than the stupidity the cynical compliance of the estetización contemporary. There is not in that obscene exhibition of atrocities another thing that search of media impact. Seems to be that this young artist that swings between the platitude and the politics of the accusation was invited to the next central american Biennial. Its stylistic one was typically "bienalista"; had all the elements of the fashionable sauce: a little soft sociology, a slice of somewhat rough and multicultural rhetoric so that can qualify the indigestible mess as "radical". Rilke found in the eyes of a doggie abandoned in its peregrinaje Spanish an interrogation metaphysics, something as well as the indication of a melancholy solidarity. Surely, Guillermo steep Slopes has not read those verses rilkeanos in which calls to the dogs that see us to pass "by a world interpreted". He, with all its decorative rage, does not need the poetry: suffices him with the brutality and to be thus, lacking him so much that to read, an illiterate animalistic one. Its provocation is, simply, revolting.

Gallery information:

Galería Códice
Del Hotel Colón 1 c. al sur 2.5 arriba
Tel: 267 2635 (info)
Web: http://www.galeriacodice.com
Email: codice@galeriacodice.com

Gallery Codex
Managua, Nicaragua

Here is the rough English translation of their statement:
Can be found in original Spanish here: http://www.galeriacodice.com/index.php?id=30

EXPLANATION OF GALERIA CODICE EXPLANATION OF GALERIA CODICE
Managua, 19 of October

Gallery Codex, from its creation in 1991, has promoted the Central American and Nicaraguan visual arts.It has exposed masterful, consolidated and emergent artists. The contemporary languages of the universal art have had space welcoming samples of conceptual art constantly. With that spirit, the 16 of August of 2007 Exhibition no. 1 appeared, of the Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas, known like Habacuc.

One of its works went to present/display a famished dog that during the exhibition was moored of a corner of the gallery. Habacuc named to the dog "Natividad" in tribute to the Nicaraguan Natividad Canda that died devoured by two Rottweiler dogs to in San Jose, Costa Rica, the 10 of November of 2005.

The dog remained in Codex three days from the 15 of August. He was loose all along in the inner patio, except the 3 hours that the sample lasted and was fed regularly. Surprise, to the dawn of the 17 of August the dog escaped by the iron iron doors of the main entrance.

Gallery Codex reserves the right of guarding by the quality of the exposed works, respecting the creativity and without exerting no type of censorship. We respected the elementary principles of the life and the ethics, that does not imply the life of a living being, is human or animal.

She celebrates the one that people at international level have been annoying by the declarations of Habacuc, where maintained that its intention was to let die to the starvation dog, which is of his responsibility. When informing the truth into the facts, we hoped that those same people have protested when Natividad Canda was devoured by the Rottweilers.

Kindly,
Juanita Bermúdez
Director
Galería Códice
Managua, Nicaragua

And they added the following link an article in the La Prensa (It is the same as what was posted on the gallery's website):
http://www-usa.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2007/octubre/24/noticias/cartas/

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Therefore, this Exhibit No. 1 was in fact a real thing that happened. The gallery claims that the dog was fed and roamed free for 3 days and escaped through an iron gate. Needless to say, Guillermo Vargas did capture the dog (the dog did not come on his own free will), may have fed him and let him go during the hours the exhibit was not open to the public, exposed the dog to harsh chemicals (the burning crack cocaine and marijuana) and didn't do anything to help the poor dog out besides tie him up and let spectators view the starving dog. I don't know about you guys, but it still cries out animal cruelty to me!