I don’t see how this (WARNING: NWS) is art.
After pickled sheep, unmade beds and painting with elephant dung, some questioned where modern art could go next.
Kira O’Reilly will provide her own answer today by spending four hours naked, hugging a dead pig – at the taxpayer’s expense.
The controversial Irish performance artist will invite one person at a time to watch her sit in a specially-constructed set and perform a ‘crushing slow dance’ with the carcass in her arms.
She claims the bizarre exhibition is an attempt to ‘identify’ with the pig, which she cuts with a knife during the show.
My first thought upon reading that was, “Wouldn’t she identify better with the pig if she were butchered in a similar manner?” Now that would be an example of one willing to go the distance for one’s art. Plus there’d be the upside that Kira O’Reilly wouldn’t be producing anymore art like this. [/sarcasm]
Naturally the PETA people are up in arms.
Anita Singh, spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said: ‘This seems to be a desperate cry for help that merits visits from mental health counsellors, not voyeurs.
‘As Miss O’Reilly seems to depend on the shock value of using a murdered pig as a prop, perhaps lacking the talent to make it as a proper artist, may we suggest she take up a day job instead to pay the bills. This is not entertainment – this is sick.’
You know…this might be one of those very rare moments when I agree with a member of PETA. Get a job, stop taking tax payer money for this nonsense, and seek professional help. Yep, we are in agreement here.
Under the title ‘Inthewrongplaceness’, the piece is billed as a ‘slow crushing dance with a pig for one at a time’.
The performance will see the artist sit in a disused social club designed to look like a bedroom, surrounded by props including flowers and a plastic swan.
She will spend four hours with the dead pig – bought from a local abattoir – in her arms.
She wrote on the gallery’s website: ‘When I cut pig I have an urge to delve both hands into the belly, to meld into her warm flesh, my blood and her blood.’
Uhhmmmm…okay. I’m just glad I wasn’t eating when I read that.
