Comments | veganpeople: PIG 05049 : Christien Meindertsma

spirulinai in veganpeople

PIG 05049 : Christien Meindertsma

Jan 27, 2010 10:43

I've stumbled across a startling art exhibition. This project, PIG 05049, takes one pig and illustrates in a very sterile and frank kind of manner where every bit and piece of the corpse goes. Here's the description from the artist's website ( Read more... )

art

Leave a comment

Back to all threads

dagda_ollathir January 27 2010, 02:00:13 UTC

i agree that dead animals are not art; but i felt that since she followed where a pig ends up and documented it, instead of making the bits part of her piece, that it's ok.

(The comment has been removed)

spirulinai January 27 2010, 02:53:13 UTC

In the end, since the animal wasn't actually killed for the project but simply documented, I feel like I agree with you and dagda_ollathir. I can't fathom how the artist would have tracked down every product that would have come from a particular pig, and the products purported to do so are on display in the gallery. That part still rubs me the wrong way somehow - the project claims to track one particular life, but the products on display can't possibly have all originated from Pig 05049. Does this erase or negate the other faces of animal slaughter? I'm not sure!

bizwac January 27 2010, 03:46:14 UTC

I don't thinkthe artist was necessarily saying that it is factually about one pig, but rather presenting it as if it was, to make the meaning more obvious whilst remaining 'approachable' (ie, keeping it simple and small scale rather than "this is what happens to lots of pigs!")

gxxx January 27 2010, 04:03:23 UTC

Agreed!

spirulinai January 27 2010, 04:03:56 UTC

Certainly. It's not feasible to run around post-slaughter asking processing plants to gently set aside PIG 05049's various body parts when realistically, they're getting shipped all over and L'Oreal isn't going to know which bar of soap the 05049's tallow has gone into. My sticking point was this - by setting aside this particular pig for example's sake, but using the products that came from a myriad of other pigs, it seems there's a bit of a conflict. We're constructing an identity of sorts for this particular pig, imagining his/her posthumous journey around different processing plants and back again. The purpose of the art seems to be to watch the progress of one pig. The artist sets up these bits and pieces in a way that exhibits them as though they were specific artifacts, and this reinforces that idea. Is the integrity of this particular pig's 'travels' compromised when we realize that probably it's a myriad of different pigs that have ended up in the exhibition ( ... )

Back to all threads