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The "Art" of Animal Cruelty
Tell San Francisco Art Institute to remove snuff video exhibit
from gallery

Walk into the Walter and McBean Galleries in San Francisco's
posh Russian Hill neighborhood, and you may be shocked to see
what passes for contemporary "art" these days. Six televisions
display video images of six different animals -- a doe, a goat,
a horse, an ox, a pig, and a sheep -- being bludgeoned to death
with a large sledgehammer by "artist" Adel Abdessemed of Paris.
Entitled "Don't Trust Me," this sick exhibit is Abdessemed's and
the Institute's self-serving attempt to pass off the brutal
abuse and killing of animals as legitimate artistic creation.

What such "artists" and their patrons overlook is that animals
are living beings who feel and suffer just like we humans -- and
we are no more justified in taking their lives at will than we
have the right to kill another person. Such abuse of animals may
elicit horror and disgust in viewers, but that does not qualify
it as art. Far from it -- in fact, "Don't Trust Me" represents
the very worst impulses of the human imagination.

It takes no artistic talent or ability to kill animals, and
Abdessemed should have never been given a venue for his
sickening "work" in the first place. To their great discredit,
the San Francisco Art Institute agreed to sponsor this exhibit,
lending it an air of credibility, but what makes matters worse
are the obscene rationalizations this venerable institution of
learning and culture offers in defense of the sleazy snuff
films. These include pedantic claims that such killings
"regularly take place...in the real world, on a regular basis,"
and that the installation "(makes) typical moral and cultural
constraints seem beside the point."

Such statements betray not only a lack of compassion and basic
human decency, but also a fundamental confusion of true artistic
creation with the destruction of life. Abdessemed's work is of
no artistic value, and rather than raise people's consciousness
about the cruelties committed against animals every day, it will
encourage them to accept animal abuse as a way of gaining
attention and notoriety.

To call someone who murders animals an "artist" is an insult to
every real artist who refuses to rely on violence and shallow,
sensationalistic gimmicks to express his or her vision. While
the work of such murderers will surely not endure, their antics
may encourage and incite others to torture and kill animals, so
it is crucial that people of conscience voice our outrage over
this monstrous display of cruelty.

What You Can Do:

Please Take Action (http://ga0.org/campai... ) to
urge the San Francisco
Art Institute to remove Abdessemed's disgusting exhibit
immediately, and implement a policy explicitly prohibiting
exhibits for which animals were exploited or killed.