I expect that a lot of my readers heard the
news this week of Bart Jansen’s dead-cat-helicopter. http://gu.com/p/3848z
Jansen’s piece has incited repulsion in so many, whereas
others consider it a legitimate piece of art. After reading the comments on one
news site – often the most interesting part – I was not surprised to see so
many condemning this man as ‘sick’ and questioning the integrity of his work.
Although I expect that this type of news attracts the attention of some angry
vegetarians I would guess that the majority of these people were not that way
inclined. So why the outcry?
The use of taxidermy in art is not an original idea with
artists such as Polly Morgan, Les Deux Garcons, and Claire Morgan using animals
on a much larger scale than Jansen but without such exposure. It is of course
no news that the average Briton has an attachment to the familiar; most of us
have been exposed to some form of traditional taxidermy in museums and in many
cases these animals have been hunted. Orville the cat was hit by a car. It
would seem that the repulsion is provoked by the absurdity of the art rather
than any moral issue. I do not believe that a nation of omnivores could be so
concerned for one artist’s beloved pet. The concern stems from the
unfamiliarity of it.
This lack of perspective is symptomatic of a culture with a
meat industry that can sell poorly kept, slaughtered chickens as ‘free-range’
without much resistance. When I discussed the issue with a friend of mine, who
works with humane taxidermy in her own art (second-hand or from animals who
were not hunted or slaughtered), she commented that ‘so many animals are dying
and suffering all the time and these people are complaining about someone
making fun art from a pet he loved that inevitably died naturally.’ Ask a
vegetarian or a vegan and they will have a much more levelled opinion on the
issue for they know what a suffering animal looks like.
Michael
P.S. thank you to Fiona Jones for the taxidermy artist
information.
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