Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Animal Torture: A New Art Form

This is one of the more bizarre stories to come across my desk recently.

I haven’t filed it under “cultural enrichment”, despite the fact that the accomplished artist — who plans to beat animals to death at an opening in the Pompidou Center — is of Algerian origin. I suspect that his project would never have seen the light of day if he had not been “brown”, but there’s no way to know for sure.

Does his treatment of his artistic subjects follow halal guidelines? Does this have anything at all to do with Islam? You decide.

Many thanks to our Spanish correspondent Hermes for translating the article from Alerta Digital:

Degradation of France has no limits: a “French” “artist” intended to kill animals in the Centre Pompidou

The animal right activists are demanding that a bloody show in the famous French Centre Pompidou be banned. The French artist Adel Abdessemed plans to end his exhibition in this museum by torturing animals.

The artist of Algerian origin will bring a cow, a calf, a pig, a goat and a sheep to the Centre Pompidou — which is one of the most famous museums in Paris — and smash them to death with a hammer to the sound of heavy [metal music].

“We have to stop this absurd show from the point of view of the true artists and those who appreciate art. Torturing animals is not art, but cruelty, and humans should not do this. This show would be an insult to the feelings of many people who defend animals,” says the petition addressed to Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti.

The appeal to stop this “dreadful crime” has received 25,500 signatures in three weeks at the civil organization’s website avaaz.org, but 30,000 are needed. The animal rights activists will demonstrate next to the museum.

This center is currently presenting the first major exhibition dedicated to the artist Adel Abdessemed, which will be open till January 7, and bears the name “I am Innocent”. A gigantic sculpture was temporarily erected as part of the exhibition. It displays the famous head butt which the French Zinedine Zidane directed to the Italian Marco Matterazi at the final of the 2006 World Soccer Championship in Germany.

In spite of the important prestige and international recognition, many have doubts about the artistic value of Adel Abdessemed. Some years ago one of his exhibitions was closed in San Francisco five days after the opening, due to massive protests and threats.

France has recently seen scandals involving animals. This week the famous actress Brigitte Bardot declared that she will apply for the Russian citizenship if two elephants in the Lyon zoo that are ill with tuberculosis are killed because of fears that the illness could be passed on to humans.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

My God, Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, how much more are you going to stand for before you STAND UP and demand that these sub-human muslims be sent home immediately, if not sooner? Oh wait, I forgot, we had to liberate you from your occupiers during the second world war, I guess we'll have to do it for you again one of these days?

Anonymous said...

My God! As sick as this 'art' is, those that patronise it as art are worse.

Anonymous said...

Not having heard of this before, just guessing, this must be a strong political statement referring to islamic slaughter?

To get the wanted effect, knowing that he might not actually perform the torture and the slaughter, the artist just had to mention the idea. Then the discussion is on.

By choosing non-islamic animals, a pig, it would be a way not to "offend islam", or "be islamophobic". Adel Abdessemed, French of Algerian origin, a modern artist living and working in Paris and New York, may have found a way to critizise inhuman desert slaughter ways from the medieval times, without directly "offending islam".

Anonymous said...

This artist is highly politically aware, showing works of Jesus on the cross, immigration boats, just to mention two works

The slaughter is of course, shocking at first. Yes, indeed. But it may turn out to be highly intelligent in the end. Could art finally, be a way to get around the obstacle, the huge elephant in the room?

Anonymous said...

“I am Innocent”

Another way not to "offend islam"?
Muslims, as we know, are always "innocent" per se. So, is this a reference to islam, without "offending" the same?

If so, could this be a way to make people reflect on the Western term 'innocent' compared to the use of the translated word from islamic terminology?

French Culture Minister
"This show would be an insult to the feelings of many people who defend animals,” says the petition addressed to Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti."
- Haha. Would she say the same about the annual islamic slaughter fests? Hardly.
- Would she dare criticize the Algerian god Zizou, Zinedane? Nope.

In his way, Adel has made the good people who would never, ever, criticize islam, still speak up. Who is more clever?


Religous reference

"I was born in Constantine , by a muslim mother, in a Jewish home, with Christian nuns as midwives. On that day, I guess, I had gathered the gods of monotheism."

“Je n’ai pas choisi l’art, c’est l’art qui m’a choisi. Un religieux dirait qu’il a été élu.”
The artist

"I didn't choose art. Art chose me. A religious person would said he has been chosen."

Francois Pinault, the French billionaire who of lately has concentrated on collecting art, also chose Adel Abdessemed.

“I am Innocent” - really a thought provoking statement, and exhibition.

The more you reflect around this artist and his current exhibition, the more you've got to like it from an intellectual point of view.



Quotes from book "Like mother, like son" - Telle mere, tel fils

Anonymous said...

Edit

The book is called
“Je n’ai pas choisi l’art, c’est l’art qui m’a choisi. Un religieux dirait qu’il a été élu.”

Publisher: Actes Sud

Anonymous said...

Edit

"I didn't choose art. Art chose me. A religious person would say he was chosen."

Oops..Sorry about that misspelling.

8:15

Anonymous said...

"I try to enlighten the world"
- Through art

Quoting Joseph Beuys
"I myself am an injured animal, an injury which is probably tied to the question of minorities, of all minorities. Gays, Women, but also the Berbers, the Cherokees", he adds, quoting Saint Matthew, when he should rather have waited at the side of Franz Fanon, and his "The Wretched of the Earth" .

"No one is going to make me swallow that piece, that there was a revolution taking place in the Arab world."

“On ne me fera pas avaler que la révolution a eu lieu dans le monde arabe”

The crucial role of art and science

"Bandits are being replaced by bandits. I come from Algeria. I have suffered myself, from islam which at the time was an islam of the axe, and not the islam of the ornamentalism and honey. You cannot become a revolutionary unless there is a real revolution, the one that passes through art and science."

“Je suis moi-même un animal blessé, une blessure qui est probablement liée à la question des minorités, de toutes les minorités, les gays, les femmes, mais aussi les Berbères et les Indiens cherokee”, complète-t-il, citant au passage saint Matthieu, quand on l’aurait plutôt attendu du côté de Fanon et ses Damnés de la terre.

About Adel A (Les Inrocks)

Anonymous said...

One of the things that is clear from reading Ibn Ishaq, is that animal sacrifice is a significant feature of islam. The cutting of an animal's throat in ritualised slaughter may well be far more significant than just repeating some traditional method of slaughter.

Anonymous said...

This is ridiculous and obscene. To
murder four innocent animals for what? Those four animals are worth more than every Moslem on the planet.

goethechosemercy said...

Quote:
The French artist Adel Abdessemed
end

Really?
He's not French.
Not with that name, that face, those tastes, that culture.
Not French at all.

Russkiy said...

This statetment by Anonymous:
This is ridiculous and obscene. To
murder four innocent animals for what? Those four animals are worth more than every Moslem on the planet.

Is a bit extreme isn't it? Unless that person is vegetarian he or she is a hypocrite to say such a thing. In any case there are hundreds of thousands of Muslims who left Islam in Algeria and became Christians or Athiests which means that muslims like every one else question their believes and some make a decision, despite threat of death from the more extreme coreligionists, to lieve that religion and accept another one.

As far as inhumane treatment of animals is concerned, the non muslim Chinese and other east and south east asians are the worst perpetrators. So lets try to be objective on such issues and not blame Islam (which deserves to be blamed for many other things)for things we are all guilty of.

I watched a documentary of how pigs are treated in pigstines. Those poor creatures. I felt like stoping eating pork after that. But my love pork took the better of me and now I constantly feel guilty when I eat pork.

Anonymous said...

Wow, there's some serious haters posting here. I was going to link to this post on my Facebook page but the haters posting here make it a bad idea.

The problem here with this degenerate "art" is not that it has anything to do with Muslims but the degenerate Europe that could consider this vomit to be art.

Europe is degenerate and is not worth saving.

Anonymous said...

Wrong, anon of 6:51, Islam is
degenerate and not worth saving.
Europe IS worth saving, VERY few people in Europe want obscene 'art'
like beating animals to death on
media.Only animals with 2 legs want that.

Hesperado said...

What's up with these pro-Muslim commenters? Is this Gates of Vienna, or did I wander into the Twilight Zone...?

Anonymous said...

I highly doubt that this man is a practicing muslim. He may be algerian but he's also a Kabyle and almost all the kabyles i've met were rabid anti-muslims, pork eaters and arab haters. The Kabyle see themselves as indigenous to the area (algerian coast) and there's a strong current among them of opposition to arabs and islam.
There is underground christianity in kabylia and Augustine was almost certainly related to the ancestors of that man. Kabyles are much more likely than other north-africans to assimilate culturally into the european cultures. Also, a lot of kabyles are pretty much white.
In the case of that guy, he unfortunately assimilated into the degenerate far leftist "performance art" culture. He seems to be a universalist type, seeing as he praises the fact that he was born surrounded by muslims, jews and christians. Real muslims don't care about that inclusivity stuff!