The ethical implications of working with living animals in contemporary art
(short version based on my MA dissertation - published in United Academics magazine)
In 2008 the San Francisco Art Institute closed an exhibition earlier than planned. On show was a video work by Adel Abdessemed, that showed six animals being brutally killed with a large hammer. Protests against the work were so vast that the exhibition was stopped after a week. Members of staff of the San Francisco Art Institute were even threatened by animal rights organizations. Although the artist had just filmed the atrocities at a Mexican farm, viewers of the video started wondering what his role was in the violence against animals.
Artists working with living animals often arouse great outrage within organizations that defend animal rights. Despite protests and media attention, it seems that artist are still allowed to go a little bit further than other people in society. This is caused by the idea that art has some autonomy; we assume the artist has an artistic intention. This gives art a special place within society. However, artist that use living animals in their artistic practice are often regarded as immoral. Is this immoral aspect used by the artist with an ethical goal or is it just provocation?
That artworks making use of living animals are provocative has been proven again and again. Hermann Nitsch risked prison with his bloody rituals; Eduardo Kac bred a green glowing rabbit and Damien Hirst ordered a rare shark for his widely known work The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991).
One of the most infamous examples is probably the work in which Marco Evaristti put several goldfish in food processors, plugged in and ready to go. The work Helena (2000) was on show in the Trapholt Art Museum in Kolding (Denmark). Just one push on the yellow button would create goldfish soup. In the time the electricity was on, about 16 goldfish were crushed. The protests by animal right organizations were heavy, and even a few surviving goldfish were stolen from the blenders. After two days the museum decided to pull out the plugs.
The moral dilemma Evaristti questioned here is clear. We, the audience, have the power over the life of a few goldfish. Do we let them live, or reduce them to goldfish puree? Do we need to make use of all the possibilities we have? Usually, when being in a museum, we are not even allowed to touch the artworks. Evaristti did not aim to encourage the useless killing of goldfish. He aimed to pose a moral dilemma; an experiment with human nature.
Evaristti and the museum director were summoned to pay a fine, but were eventually acquitted.
However, complaints about immoral artworks can get more serious. Recently Dutch artist Tinkebell, known around the world for once having her cat made into a handbag, had to come to court to defend one of her artworks. In her work Save the Pets (2008), hundred hamsters were put in transparent plastic balls, which are produced by the pet industry. In a living room setting, she let the hamsters roll around in the gallery for three weeks. She based her work on short films she had seen on YouTube of pet owners using the plastic balls to watch their hamsters rolling around in their house. Being accused of animal abuse, she was called to court.
Tinkebell, using her provocative work to raise attention for animal welfare, won the case. However, it were the same animal rights organizations she has said to support that sued her. This is one of the difficulties in trying to raise attention for a case through provocative art. Many people have problems with the viewing of art as something else than just real life; artists as Tinkebell are therefore often dismissed as sensational and attention seeking people.
It seems natural today that we should bother about animals, although they are still largely abused in the meat industry for our food. Throughout Western history, animals have always been regarded as subordinate to humans. In the animal kingdom we also see a certain hierarchy; not much protest has been heard about the Belgian artist and theatre maker Jan Fabre using millions of shiny beetles for his artworks, whereas Wim Delvoye has had much trouble with his work that includes the tattooing of pigs. Most of us simply do not grant a spider and a cow the same amount of respect.
The shift in Western philosophy to think of animals as creatures that deserve some ethical consideration has been very slow. Only in the last century philosophers like Levinas and Derrida started thinking about the relations between humans and animals in different ways. Although our conscience has changed in favor of the animal, the differences still remain complicated, and question the borders of our respect for the animal.
Despite this complicated relationship between humans and animals, we tend to feel aversion to artworks that show us cruelty towards animals, whether this is implicit or explicit. Should we accept an artwork that contradicts our moral? Art is made from an artistic intention and therefore also requires an artistic attitude from the spectator. Because of the autonomy of art, moral borders are stretched; when we as spectators see an artwork, we know we do not have to intervene, because it is art we are seeing, and not a scene in the street. But it is only natural that provocative art generates an inner resistance. Morality is our inner police officer; we know automatically what is right and wrong. Whether you accept something as art or not, it will still not be very pleasant to watch a work of the kind I discussed.
A good immoral work is not one that is just shocking; a shock effect is rarely lasting. A good immoral work provides ongoing food for thought. By confronting us with topics we would rather avoid or ignore, artists encourage us to think about these uncomfortable subjects. Through our own morality we can recognize the artwork as immoral and gather knowledge out of this. But despite the autonomy of art, moral borders do not cease to exist. It is the responsibility of the artist to decide how far he can go in using animals. But also the spectator has responsibility; when we watch a goldfish swim around in a food processor, it does not mean we have to push the button.
