Rights of insects, reptiles trump artistic freedom
Renowned Chinese artist's piece gone

WENDY STUECK
From Monday's Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER — The lizard lounged, the crickets chirped and the tarantulas perched on fuzzy legs at the edges of a turtle-shaped enclosure, oblivious to their role as stars in a battle of artistic freedom versus animal-welfare concerns.

That was yesterday. As of today, however, the creatures — part of an exhibit called Theatre of the World by renowned Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping — will be gone, removed after the Vancouver Art Gallery decided it could not comply with additional orders from the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals without compromising the artist's work.

The gallery had already made changes to address the agency's concerns about living conditions for reptiles and insects that were part of the exhibit, VAG chief curator Daina Augaitis said yesterday.

But when the B.C. SPCA said the tarantulas and scorpions had to go, the gallery bit back, concluding Saturday that it was unable to accommodate the latest order after consulting with the artist.
As she showed a visitor through the exhibit yesterday, Ms. Augaitis said the order focused on reducing stress for the creatures in the exhibit, a concept she admitted she wrestled with.

“Someone's dog gets stressed when their owner goes to work,” Ms. Augaitis said. “To what extent do you go to alleviate stress for a millipede or a toad?”

That question was echoed by many gallery-goers yesterday. Some brought their children, who milled around the exhibit, trying to spot the shy toads (mistakenly believed to be missing earlier in the week, but who turned out to be lurking under some vegetation) and remarking on a healthy-looking cockroach.

The creatures' natural habitats are likely considerably more dangerous than the gallery, said Sarah Bindernagel of Bellingham, in Washington State.

“It's not like it's a cat or a dog,” she added.

But critics who had spoken out against the exhibit, which opened April 5, welcomed the gallery's decision.

“We wanted to see those animals removed from that situation and if that's going to happen, we're very pleased,” said Peter Fricker, a spokesman for the Vancouver Humane Society.

Mr. Fricker said it's not unreasonable to put animal rights before artistic expression, noting that similar objections to the exhibit surfaced in France in the 1990s.

“What's happened here is that two important values have clashed — one is the right to artistic expression and the other is the importance of the humane treatment of animals,” Mr. Fricker said.

“And in our view, the inhumane treatment of animals is going to trump artistic expression every time.”

Theatre of the World is one of 11 exhibits in House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective, a landmark show that touches on such themes as power, decay and censorship.

The exhibit features live crickets, tarantulas, cockroaches, millipedes, scorpions, lizards, snakes and toads in an enclosure shaped like a turtle's shell and is meant to represent “power dynamics.”

After receiving complaints about the show, the SPCA sent a veterinarian to check the exhibit. The veterinarian flagged several concerns, including heat, humidity and stress. An SPCA representative was not immediately available Sunday.



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070416.wgallery16/BNStory/

Are you fucking kidding me? Can someone explain to me how this is significantly different from a reptile or insect exhibit at a zoo? Animals in those situations need to feed and i can assure you that they aren't getting little mini tofu burgers.

Also, what does the SPCA think owners of reptiles and tarantulas are feeding their pets at home. I'll tell you. Crickets, grubs and other small insects. I have a hard time believing that the SPCA would have any luck shutting downt the thousands of pet stores that willingly send those insects off to such a stressful environment.

What a foolish waste of resources that could have been used to help animals in actual distress. I'll think of this next time the SPCA comes knocking on my door looking for donations.

It doesn't really say in this article, but the animals were intentionally put in a confined enclosure under intense heat in order to make them stressed out and irritated so that they would irritate each other. It's not as if it was an insectarium with insects on display in somewhat of a "natural" habitat.

That's fine, but the article made it sound as if the gallery complied with the SPCA's recommendations regarding the environment, but were then hit with additional requests.


I'm a big supporter of animal rights but at what point to you draw the line? As far as I'm concerned they're going a bit overboard here.