A Danish artist has stirred up controversy by giving Ugandan villagers free goats, sheep and pigs — but on condition that they adopt his name.Or do you think he's made a fine critique of the West's hypocrisy, and the Hornsleths are all glad because they all got a pig.
Kristian von Hornsleth says his aim is to highlight the perils of tied aid in Africa, but his project has already been denounced by a Ugandan minister as “evil and satanic.”
Hornsleth launched an exhibition in Copenhagen on Friday of the project. The 108 photos of people holding up their new “identity cards” in the red, yellow and black of Uganda’s flag with the name “Hornsleth” are meant to comment on conditions Western donors attach to aid.
“It’s a remark about hypocrisy, about Western and Third World relations,” Hornsleth told Reuters.
November 19, 2006
"They said to me: 'We get a pig? Great'... So I explained the exhibition. They said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, but give me the pig. We’re poor."
Another art project for you to rail against:
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14 comments:
"I went to the Danish aid fair, and all I got was this lousy pig!"
Or you could help people become self-sustaining by giving a pig or a goat without your name on it, but then it wouldn't be art, would it?
So what happens when the animal dies/is eaten? Not only is this project about hypocrisy, that malady most dreaded and hated by adolescents of all ages, but it's also about as useless as African aid: a temporary fix to a persistent problem. But hey, finally some clever stunt-based "art" that isn't entirely worthless. At least some Ugandans got a goat.
Advice to other aspiring "artists" (spectacularians?): it's best not to make actual poor, oppressed people the butt of your little impotent object lessons.
This Dane should "kick it up a notch" next time and send his next shipment of pigs to poor Yemeni Muslim farmers. You want to stir up outrage, little artiste? Why not do it with people who specialize in outrage?
That's right, Pastor Jeff, it's a sign of our too comfortable society that the most important thing is that we comment artistically and ironically upon our--actually, more likely our neighbor's--guilt. A stance of high moralism always cleanses the soul.
What were the pigs named?
Thanks for the link, Pastor Jeff. I've been trying to remember the name of that organization for some time now.
Donating a means of food production makes a lot more sense to me than donating money for food.
Nothing like exploiting people to prove a point about exploitation.
In his next project he should senselessly kill people to protest senseless killing in war, or starve people to decry starvation.
One pig for a name is hypocritical.........how about 2 pigs or how about a road for your oil and we turn a blind eye to your
human rights abuses ?
Beijing as a permanent member of the UN Security Council has been indifferent to the western Sudan’s Darfur conflict which, since 2003, has seen more than 200,000 killed and two million internally displaced people.
Athough more justifiable from those in need, the world, not just the West. is rife with hypocrisy. China has created alliances with 48 African nations promising investment and all that it asks for is their wealth in the form of their natural resources.
BTW
World Vision also has a gift program of not only livestock but small business loans to woman, gifts of sewing machines, job training and so on.
There are few things further from art and beauty than angry young postmodern nihilists determined to 'make a statement'.
Unable to create the desired emotion through actual art, he shouts at you "feel this", a method not unlike GHW Bush's "Message: I care."
Kristian (note the name) has similar art triumphs with
theFutilistic Manifest
Fuck Me Daddy Bikini
Kill The Bitch men's ring
the RAPE KILL STEAL BURN Pikachu
and that great neon light installation, FUCK YOU ART LOVERS
Yes, here's the modern leftist worldview in a nutshell.to shift exploitation of the poor from capitalism to socialism. Same contempt for the actual impoverished, but the bonus of superiority for feeling sad about it.
Is this so different from the Duke family's supposed effort in the 1920's to give a large endowment to Princeton, if it would only change its name to Duke? Princeton declined, and the family gave the money to what was then called Trinity, and became Duke.
HORNSLETH........ after looking over his site, it is all about obsession with name ......his own. Trite but as a child he was probably ignored and as a result screams out his own name to validate his existence...........
The 'artist' in action.
Palladian: Crazy true fact - animals reproduce!
Evidently this is how pigs and cows and the like have survived the thousands upon thousands of years since their domesticated breeding began.
I imagine that's the underlying assumption of giving them livestock; that the livestock will make more livestock.
(Since more than one person in the village has a pig, they can breed them. Individual families don't need to have an entire breeding pair themselves, after all.
This is the evidently effective operating plan behind the Heifer charity.)
Exploit how?
Obviously the people didn't care about the name... they were happy to get the pig.
The Ugandan ministers were probably just mad that they didn't get their cut of the aid as it passed down through channels.
UN "peacekeepers" trading food for sex with minors seems a bit more exploitive.
Oh, and what pogo said.
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