Failing to close an exhibition

To counter act the previous article that I talked about, I read a newspaper article, Animal rights activists fail to close Italian art exhibition by Garrett Harris, that talked about the same artist: Adel Abdessemed. In 2009 the artist had a controversial exhibition at Turin-based gallery. Included in the exhibition were images of animals being slaughtered. Some of the images included where the same images that were closed in the San Francisco exhibition the previous year. These images are included in the work Don't Trust Me (2008). The exhibition also included more films shot in Mexico that showcased roosters and dogs fighting in an area that the artist has put them in.

The Italian rights group reported concerns about the works involved with the exhibition to Turin's councillor, Domenico Magaone. The outcome was that works didn't have anything incriminating or illegal about them. So, the show went on as planned.

There is also mention about the exhibition at SAIC and what happened there.

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My thoughts:
It appears to me that the Italian animal rights group approached this exhibition in a different way than In Defense of Animals did with the SAIC exhibition. There was no mention of any direct threats to the artists or anyone else involved at the Turin exhibition. Is this because there wasn't a more massive public outpour of the exhibition? I wonder how many people actually reported concerns? Was it just a handful of people or thousands of people like with the In Defense of Animal group? I think the more people that are reporting a negative aspect of the works would have a great impact of shutting down the exhibition.

Is a more forceful direct and even threatening approach the only one that is going to work? I found these two newspaper articles fascinating because it has two different groups trying to shut down the same artist's exhibition. I do not think that animals rights groups should be going ground treating people. That is just not right. The question then remains who can animal rights groups approach exhibitions and artists who are harming animals in order to get their message across to the public?

I really have no desire to research more about the artist Abdessened. The work is just something I don't want to deal with; however, these newspaper articles about his work allows me to see evidence of animals advocacy groups trying to close down exhibitions.

A Rupture in the Field of Representation: Animals, Photography and Affect

A Rupture in the Field of Representation: Animals, Photography and Affect Recruiting Strangers and Friends: Moral Shock and Social Networks in Animal Rights and Anti-Nuclear Protests. Reviewed by Matthew Brower

 {curator of the University of Toronto Art Center; book is Animal Traces: Early American Animal Photography.}

This essay deals with how photographic affect by using animal photography. Barthe's

concept of punctum is used to look at the importance of animality related to the concept. Jacques Derrida is also brought up and his work on animality.

Jasper and Poulsen feel that animal rights activists encounter images of animal suffering and use activism as a response to the suffering imposed within the photographs. The response is referred to as "moral shocks," which they describe as, "when an event or situation raises such a sense of outrage in people that they become inclined toward political action, even in the absence of a network of contacts." Activists used the images to attach meaning and symbols that have adding meaning as a recruitment tool. The moral shocks help to develop the animal activist groups.

John Berger's canonical argument of photographs of animals used to reinforce this separation among humans and animals and humans. {Find out if I can get Berger's book Why Look At Animals?} Photographs can show us how animals remain separate from humans and our society has completely disconnected from the animals.

Jonathan Burt {Book Animals in Film} looks at the potential affect animals have in

emotional responses. Animals can signify a "rupture in the field of representation" The body of the animal act, however, they can't perform any function. The essay further explores Burt's analysis of animals in film. The most important part of Burt's argument is that the filmic punctum of animal bodies isn't a private matter, but rather social and political.

The anaylsis of Burt is used for the reader to understand Barthes's punctum. Barthes discusses the studium and the punctum in Camera Lucida. The punctum, which is most important for this essay, is when the photographs expose a wound and something that is outside the image. He refers to this as "madness." The image in the photograph shows us something dead or a horrifying event. It exposes our own finitude.

Barthes's punctum is seen as a singular and unsharable event; however the punctum 

can't function without sharing of the finitude. The essay then goes into describe other's ideas on animals and death. Akira Lippit believes that in the Western way of thinking the emphasize the animals inability to comprehend death. Derrida argues that animals have to signify that they are social beings. The "madness" of the image in any photograph is "the spectral logic of hauntology."The madness in the photographs are unable to be maintained because we have to share 

the wound that has been exposed to the viewer. The animals haunt the Camera Lucida and if we are able to find away to take animals seriously, we can understand how the 

punctum has an affect to the social realm.

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Thoughts:

This article was very interesting. I am wondering what it means that this is a Review Essay. I thought that this article was very concise and easy to follow. Brower brought up some really valid points and was able to call upon some major authorities on the topic. I really need to further explore Jaques Derrida because I have seen his name mentioned in a lot of the articles that I have come across on the topic of animal rights in the arts. I was able to pull some great information on ideas that I wasn't aware of before, one of them being the idea of the punctum. This was new to me and very fascinating. The bibliography of the article is going to be extremely helpful to me because it provides a lot of resources that I believe will be of value to me topic!

I haven't thought about exploring photography as the object of my paper prior to reading this essay. I think that photography is an important medium and sometimes can be overlooked. I do believe that photography of animal rights

issues can have a big impact on society. I will need to further explore photographers who deal with the topic. 

Animal Activists Closing Exhibitions

I recently found two articles/newspaper writings that dealt with the same artist: Adel Abdessemed, an Algerian, Paris based artists. The first one, Terror campaign by animal rights group forces closure of exhibition by Charmaine Picard published in Art Newspaper, May 2008, Vol. 17, p3-3; 1p,2008.

The exhibition was held at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in March 2008. The curator, Hou Hanru had received numerous death threats by animal rights groups because the videos in the exhibition showed the killing of six animals. Abdessemed shot the videos in Mexico to show the documentation of traditional methods of food production. The animals were killed with the sledgehammer to their heads. The animal group, In Defense of Animals, set out emails to its members urging them to send letters for the exhibition to be taken down.

The group was classified as "extremists" by the president of SFAI, Chris Bratton. He said that the emails targeted the artist, staff, etc. It was shut down after one week of being open.

The artists' art dealer, David Zwirner said that the work was important political statement  to make people aware of what is going on with the war. The animals were consumed for food. It is also about how other cultures view death.

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My thoughts:
I am not sure how I completely feel about the method of how the animal rights group approached the exhibition. I would also like to see proof of how threatening the emails actually were. I am sure that some of them were really threatening, but I don't believe that all of them could be. Having the exhibition shut down does show that activists groups do have some power.

I do not agree with what the artist had done for his work. I feel that he could have approached the political subject matter in a more tasteful way without harming animals.

For my thesis, I am not sure if I will want to deal with animal rights groups and there impact on artists/exhibitions. It is really interesting to see how powerful a group can be. Also, I wonder if the animals rights group have taken a more direct approach against other artists.