I decided not to post in the thread about this, mostly because I'm not interested in debating the point. I just wanted to preserve my thoughts.
About Nathalia Edenmont's work:
I have no problem with it. In fact, if I had the money, I would buy one of her pieces.
I also love my cats, and would beat the living shit out of anyone who mistreated them.
I'm aware that these viewpoints seem to be contradictory. But I see a point in her work. I find it amusing, in a way, and distressing, in another, to read the reactions that have been posted, but I assume that that is the point.
I don't think that this is just about the hypocrisy involved in animal testing or eating meat. I think that it applies to far more things than this, or even human tragedy.
People starve themselves in the name of beauty. People outsource jobs to maximize profits, and minimize wages and benefits for the same reasons. People selectively educate their children in order to indoctrinate (e.g., send them to parochial schools rather than secular public ones). People legislate, or attempt to legislate, acceptable sexual conduct and orientations in order to preserve social agendas. People send other, younger people to die in order to spread political ideals. All of these things reduce human beings to resources.
Yet the outrage over these things is nowhere near the outrage over using a cat to create an object of beauty. Doing this results in accusations of mental illness, but the consistent, widespread reduction of human beings to capital is simply an issue of political concern and irresponsibility.
Why is this? Why does a cat head mounted on a vase provoke such an extreme reaction, when these other things are often met with passivity -- if not outright support?
That is the point, I think.
Nathalia Edenmont is neither mentally ill nor criminal. I support her work and hope that she continues to produce it.
About Nathalia Edenmont's work:
I have no problem with it. In fact, if I had the money, I would buy one of her pieces.
I also love my cats, and would beat the living shit out of anyone who mistreated them.
I'm aware that these viewpoints seem to be contradictory. But I see a point in her work. I find it amusing, in a way, and distressing, in another, to read the reactions that have been posted, but I assume that that is the point.
I don't think that this is just about the hypocrisy involved in animal testing or eating meat. I think that it applies to far more things than this, or even human tragedy.
People starve themselves in the name of beauty. People outsource jobs to maximize profits, and minimize wages and benefits for the same reasons. People selectively educate their children in order to indoctrinate (e.g., send them to parochial schools rather than secular public ones). People legislate, or attempt to legislate, acceptable sexual conduct and orientations in order to preserve social agendas. People send other, younger people to die in order to spread political ideals. All of these things reduce human beings to resources.
Yet the outrage over these things is nowhere near the outrage over using a cat to create an object of beauty. Doing this results in accusations of mental illness, but the consistent, widespread reduction of human beings to capital is simply an issue of political concern and irresponsibility.
Why is this? Why does a cat head mounted on a vase provoke such an extreme reaction, when these other things are often met with passivity -- if not outright support?
That is the point, I think.
Nathalia Edenmont is neither mentally ill nor criminal. I support her work and hope that she continues to produce it.
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I am constantly amazed at how many people want to discredit this out of hand. I can certainly see scrutinizing it, but I can't understand people who think we shouldn't even ask these questions.