Art: Naked Woman to Hug a Dead Pig for 4 Hours

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.

FILED UNDER: Entertainment, Popular Culture, ,
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. Patti says:

    I remember when you used to be able to expect an artist to be able to draw…

  2. Patrick McGuire says:

    A naked artist and a dead pig! How are you supposed to tell them apart?

  3. Anderson says:

    However, she refuses to date me. I am … crushed.

  4. Alan Kellogg says:

    A bloated dead pig would help her neurosis. 🙂

  5. ob1 says:

    A perfect example of why governments should not pay to support “artists”. I wonder how much she is getting paid.

  6. lily says:

    Please don’t punish artists for the wasted money! Punish the bureaucrat who decided to fund this artist rather than a genuinely talented one.

  7. McGehee says:

    Better still, punish the politicians who decided artists need to be funded by taxpayers.

    (Cue the cry of “censorship” in three… two …)

  8. stevesh says:

    Go back to the linked story. Directly under the the artist’s picture (Is the Goose next?) is a link for a feature titled, “Flight 93 “shot down.”

    Some nauseating git named Rowland Morgan is selling a book and the article is an adaptation. I wonder if the Daily Mail is connected with the publisher.

  9. I don’t mind they dead pig. I don’t mind the naked woman. I don’t even mind calling this art (certainly something for each individual to decide). What does rankle is that it is government funded as opposed to he being able to support her definition of art by sales (including the ‘big sale’ to a patron). Now this is funded by taxpayers other than me, but I will declare international solidarity with my fellow tax payer class.

    The government should get out of the art business and let the merits for the art allow it to rise or fall on its own.

  10. hln says:

    I think PETA would have proffered the same quote if Ms. O’Reilly were hugging a dead pig. And I thought treehuggers were bad.

    hln

  11. hln says:

    Brain muddled – that last comment should have been “hugging a live pig.”

    hln