March 31, 2008

San Francisco Art Institute Closes Show That Enraged Animal-Rights Groups

The San Francisco Art Institute shuttered a Paris artist’s one-man show Saturday after receiving a series of threats related to videos in the exhibition that showed animals being bludgeoned to death. The institute also canceled a public forum about the show that it had scheduled after complaints began pouring in.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, animal-rights groups compared the show to “a snuff film about animals,” as a spokesman for one of the groups put it. Officials of the art institute said that the video footage showed animals being slaughtered for food in Mexico, and that the videos were part of a social critique by the artist, Adel Abdessemed. But the newspaper said the exhibition itself did not give any context for the videos. The institute received more than 8,000 e-mail messages protesting the show.

Chris Bratton, the art institute’s president, said in a news release that an “orchestrated campaign” by animal-rights groups had led to a “parallel onslaught of explicit death threats and threats of sexual violence — as well as racial, religious, and homophobic slurs — against SFAI staff members and their families,” forcing the institute to close the show. —Lawrence Biemiller

Comments

1. So much for free speech in San Francisco (and Berkeley, etc.). Without viewing the installation, I can’t comment on the artistic merit, or lack thereof, of Abdessemed’s work. If I interpret the article correctly, the animal-rights groups object to the video because it depicts acts of extreme cruelty to animals. Stopping the show, however, will not stop such acts of cruelty. In fact, viewing such videos might even awaken some people to the cruelty inherent in much of the meat-producing industry. These protests seem misdirected to say the least. Finally, threatening violence, engaging in racist speech, etc. is, itself, to engage in cruelty. This may not be cruelty on a par with beating an animal’s brains in, but, again, this strikes me as highly misdirected.

   — Sally    Apr 1, 06:55 AM    #

2. It has been my experience that the animal rights fanatics neither want nor care about intelligent discourse. They would kill a million people in the name of “animal rights” and think nothing of it. The SFAI show is just one more example of their insanity. Even though I ascribe to some of their stated positions, I would NEVER join or support any animal rights group.

   — JPS    Apr 1, 08:09 AM    #

3. I can just imagine the reaction of these Jell-O brains if someone were to attack their own free speech. It’s hard to believe Abdessemed’s show was intended as a celebration of violence against animals. But ideologues won’t be distracted with facts, so long as they can roll into action against someone. And the same people who protest animal testing would be the ones to sue when their medication didn’t work right or when their shampoo turned out to be a dipilatory: but who knew? It wasn’t tested on any animal but the one who paid for it.

   — Dan    Apr 1, 08:37 AM    #

4. Everything is offensive to one group or another. Pro-life people showing through pictures the process of abortion offend pro-choicers. I may not agree with the art display at SFAI, but I must defend their right to free expression to have the exhibition if I want my own right to free expression. I don’t agree with Neo-Nazism, but I’ve got to defend their rights too.

   — dsyind    Apr 1, 08:43 AM    #

5. This is an April Fool’s joke right? My heart aches for the even-keeled people of northern California.

   — Douglas    Apr 1, 09:00 AM    #

6. In China, there are videos of a girl crushing live animals-kittens, puppies, baby ducks, with her high heels. There is a sexual perversion called paraphilia of “crush fetish”. Would this be called ‘art’ according to the SF Institute of Art standards? The FBI and criminiologists also have linked animal cruelty to crimes of violence; virtually all serial killers had their “training” by killing animals. Children have access to this “art” and learn from the adults that torturing and killing animals is acceptable, even “artistic”. People are outraged because they care about living things-it is a terrible reflection what society has become when smashing brains complete with gore and violence has become “art”. Remember the words of a very great man, “The greatness of a nation, and its moral progress is measured by the way its animals are treated” – Ghandi.
   This exhibit also reflects San Francisco. Now I think of the city full of perverts and sadists who enjoy torturing and MUTILATING animals and call it “fine art”. To me this is nothing short of pure disgusting and filth.

   — Louis Thomas    Apr 1, 09:19 AM    #

7. Whoa there, Louis Thomas — even quoting Ghandi won’t save that take on the installation. Read Sally (#1) — she has the right sense of things.
   And in terms of impacting children — parents should certainly apply discretion, as they should in all aspects of their children’s exposure to a harlequin world. Forcing a gallery to pull an exhibit under anonymous threat of physical harm, however, is thuggish, even terrorist-minded.

   — Erik    Apr 1, 09:49 AM    #

8. I believe it was Frank Zappa who once stomped on a group of baby chicks on stage. (They had to stop the show because the floor had gotten too slippery.) He may have been attempting to make a point like “we kill and eat them anyway, so what’s the difference?”
   Perhaps the exhibitor was trying to show the truth about the way animals are routinely slaughtered. Like most people, I prefer my meat already cut up, in the refrigerated section, covered in cellophane. Perhaps we should all be forced to see how the meat gets to our plates before we eat it. Perhaps that would show more respect for the animals who are giving their lives for us and get us back in touch with what is really going on.

   — Andrew    Apr 1, 01:00 PM    #

9. The Impressionists were very nearly drowned in the Seine for their heresies; the Expressionists were sent to Auschwitz; the Modernist exhibits were firebombed. Art and exhibition are a card game played with locomotives.

   — marci    Apr 1, 04:18 PM    #

10. Fer cripe sake, Andrew, if you’re going to malign the memory of poor Frank Zappa, check it out first. A quick google search will tell you that it was allegedly Alice Cooper that stomped on baby chicks, and he has denied it anyway.

    — Laura    Apr 1, 06:21 PM    #

11. Most if not all animal rights people are against violence to human or non-human animals.

    I think those “death threats and threats of sexual violence” may have been bogus. or distorted by the media. If they were accurately quoted, I seriously doubt the ones who made them were animal-rights people.

    — Rosalind    Apr 2, 01:26 AM    #

12. Animal rights kooks want to protect animals but threaten to kill people. Talked about messed up.

    — Richard    Apr 2, 12:09 PM    #

13. Rosalind,
    how could you be so foolish to think that someone would fabricate receiving death threats? You clearly have no valid information concerning this matter. It’s also incredible that you would assume to know the agenda of every single person who claims to be an animal rights activist. You somehow think that if someone claims to be an activist that they would not use any means necessary to get their goals accomplished? The activists wanted the show to be closed and they used the threat of violence to ensure their desired outcome.

    — Michelle    Apr 3, 02:03 AM    #

14. This exhibit was an atrocity done in the name of art! Something is VERY wrong with ‘the art world’ if they think this hideous cruelity is artistic. While I seriously doubt the claims of ‘violent death threats’, I’m glad the Institute at least got the message.

    — Joan    Apr 5, 07:11 PM    #

15. Seriously doubt the claims of violent death threats? Wow, how incredibly arrogant and ignorant. And for you to be “glad” the Institute got the message sickens me. No one deserves to be bullied the way SFAI was, and for you to say you’re “glad” about it is ridiculous.

    — NYCEdPhD    Apr 7, 02:17 PM    #

16. I can guarantee that any true animal rights activists were not ones that made death or personal threats to the AI or the artist. There is a STRICT code of no-harm to humans or animals practiced by true animal rights activists. In any given protest situation, all it takes are a few violent weirdos to distort the views toward those who are opposing something peacefully.

    — Fg    Apr 17, 05:15 PM    #

17. ..and by strict code of no harm, I mean verbal or written threats as well.

    — Fg    Apr 17, 05:17 PM    #

18. It is easy to make that guarantee if you use a circular definition (i.e., animal rights activists are only those people who abide by this strict code and therefore anyone making such a threat is subsequently not an activist). However, the fact remains that it seems likely that such threats were made and by people who consider themselves to be animal rights activists. There is hypocrasy within that group (when that group is defined as those who self-identify as activists). It is often difficult to know where to draw the line when considering laws for the protection of a just and equitalbe society. However, it is the responsibility of the makers of that society to maintain justice while protecting the right to freedom of speech. Fight Censorship.

    — Daniel    Apr 24, 02:22 AM    #

Previous: Hampshire College Students Stage Walkout to Demand More Diversity
Next: President of Alabama A&M U. Is Fired Over Assistant's Paid Leave