Guggenheim Exhibit With Video of Dogs Trying to Fight Stirs Criticism
The museum tried to tamp down the criticism on Thursday night, announcing in a statement
that the piece, "Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other," would stay in the exhibition even though "the work may be upsetting." The seven-minute clip shows four pairs of American pit bulls charging each other but unable to touch because they are running on nonmotorized treadmills.
21, 2017
Two weeks before a much-anticipated exhibition featuring Chinese conceptual artists opens at the Guggenheim, the
museum is facing intense pressure to exclude one piece of art: a video of dogs trying to fight one another.
(In 2000, their transfused blood was injected into the corpse of conjoined babies in the performance piece "Body Link.") "Shame on the ‘artists’ for
using animals in their pitch for sensationalism," one reader wrote in the comments of a New York Times article this week about the Guggenheim show.
"Shame on you Guggenheim for prompting heinous animal cruelty under the guise of ‘art.’" In an interview last year, Mr. Sun and Ms. Peng defended "Dogs
That Cannot Touch Each Other" and dismissed claims of animal cruelty.
Guggenheim said that The curators of the exhibition hope
that viewers will consider why the artists produced it and what they may be saying about the social conditions of globalization and the complex nature of the world we share,
The three-month show, "Art and China After 1989," opens Oct. 6 in the New York City museum and will feature about 150 pieces of experimental art.
