Category: Art

BOOKS—Beautiful Old Dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2013: (Actually published on October 8,  2013)

Beautiful Old Dogs Edited by David Tabatsky,  with photos by Garry Gross St. Martin’s Press  (c/o MacMillan,  175 Fifth Avenue,  New York,  NY  10010),  2013. 144 pages,  hardcover.  $17.99.

Beautiful Old Dogs features photos by fashion photographer turned dog photographer Garry Gross (1937-2010),  matched with literary contributions by prominent dog-loving New Yorkers or former New Yorkers.  Most are contemporary,  including Anna Quindlen,  Ally Sheedy, Doris Day,  Dean Koontz,  and Marlo Thomas,  but the playwright Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) is also represented,  celebrating the endearing qualities of aging pets. Read more

BOOKS—Wild Planet: Celebrating wildlife photographer of the year

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2013: (Actually published on October 8,  2013)

Wild Planet:  Celebrating wildlife photographer of the year
Natural History Museum 
(Cromwell Road,  London SW7 5BD,  U.K.),  2013.
143 pages,  paperback.  $23.95.

Anthologizing 80 winning entries from the Natural History Museum’s “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” competition,  Wild Planet is a celebration of wildlife indeed.   Read more

BOOKS: Horse Sanctuary

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  April 2013:

Horse Sanctuary  by Allison Milionis Photos by Karen Tweedy Holmes Universe (300 Park Avenue South,  New York,  NY  10010),  2013. 255 pages,  hardcover.  $40.00.

Horse Sanctuary offers more than 250 exquisite photos of horses at 13 facilities listed here for the interest of readers who may donate to one or more them and wonder what they look like:

The Blackburn Correctional Complex training center operated by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation in Lexington,  Kentucky;  the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in Hot Springs,  South Dakota; the Catskill Animal Sanctuary,  in Saugerties,  New York;  the Equine Sanctuary,  in Ojai,  California;  Equine Voices Rescue & Sanctuary,  in Green Valley,  Arizona;  Front Range Equine Rescue,  in Larkspur,  Colorado; the Horse Harbor Foundation,  in Poulsbo,  Washington;  the Last Chance Corral in Athens,  Ohio;  Lope Texas,  in Cedar Creek,  Texas;  Lucky Horse Equine Rescue,  in Bolton,  Massachusetts;  Nokota Horse Conservancy,  in Linton,  North Dakota;  Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue,  in Tehachapi,  California;  and Save Your Ass Long Ear Rescue,  in South Acworth,  New Hampshire. The accompanying text uncritically describes the work of each facility.  Horse-lovers will love it,  but Horse Sanctuary is at best just a coffee table treatment of the issues involved in horse rescue.  Several of the profiles are seriously misleading.   Read more

Editorial feature: Art, nukes, & ethical energy

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:

Chilean shock artist Marco Evaristti won global notoriety in
February 2000 with an exhibit at the Trapholt Art Museum in Kolding,
Denmark, consisting of 10 blenders containing live goldfish.
Visitors were invited to puree a goldfish.
Friends of Animals/Denmark, not affiliated with the U.S.
organization Friends of Animals, won an injunction ordering that the
electricity supply to the blenders should be cut off. When two
goldfish were pureed anyhow, FoA/Denmark pursued criminal charges
against Evaristti and museum director Peter Meyer. The case against
Meyer went to court in May 2003. Meyer was acquitted, but even in
Denmark, whose national identity is intertwined with commercial
fishing, whale massacres in the Faroe Islands, and the Copenhagen
fur trade, public opinion clearly rejected the notion of pulverizing
live fish as “art.”

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International Rights Film Festival awards

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
KHARKOV–Nineteen films on human rights and animal rights
themes were honored at the Third International Rights Film Festival
in Kharkov, Ukraine, during the week of December 12-19, 2009.
Another 22 films won honorable mentions.
“Steps to Freedom” statuettes for best films in category were
awarded to three films on animal rights themes. “Best short film on
animal rights” was He’d never do that, directed by Anartz Zuazua of
Spain. “Best documentary on animal rights” was “I’m an Animal: the
Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA,” directed by Matthew Galkin of the
U.S.

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BOOKS: The Forgotten Horses

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2009:

The Forgotten Horses
Photographs by Tony Stromberg
New World Library (14 Pamaron Way,
Novato, CA 94949), 2008.
192 pages, hardcover. $45.00.

The Forgotten Horses is dedicated “To
unwanted horses, both domestic and wild. To the
unsung heroes at equine rescue organizations and
sanctuaries all over the world who have taken it
upon themselves to honor, defend, care for,
and support unwanted horses and animals–it is
their life, their livelihood, and their
homecoming.”

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BOOKS: Breaking the Chain: Teaching kindness & compassion to animals through art & creative writing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:

Breaking the Chain:
Teaching kindness & compassion to animals
through art & creative writing
Edited by Bari Mears & Deb White.
Free download: <www.pacc911.org>

“A dog named Joey is tethered by a chain day after day,
night after night in his owner’s back yard. Harriet, a very clever
cat, moves next door and takes an immediate interest in Joey’s
plight. How does the story end?”
Thus Maricopa County Animal Care & Control volunteer Debra J.
White annually introduces more than 2,000 third graders to an
exercise combining creative writing with humane education. Some add
drawings to their work. Starting at two schools in 2004, White
within a year reached 15 schools, and after five years coordinates a
project that has begun attracting national notice.

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BOOKS: Cats & Dogs in the Louvre

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:

Cats in the Louvre
by Frederic Vitoux &
Elisabeth Foucart-Walter

Dogs in the Louvre
by Francois Nourissier &
Elisabeth Foucart-Walter

Flammarion (c/o Rizzoli New York, 300 Park
Avenue South, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10010),
2008.
Each 80 pages, hardcover, illustrated; $19.95.

Elisabeth Foucart-Walter, chief curator
of the painting department at the Louvre art
museum in Paris, has teamed with Académie
française member Frédéric Vitoux and Académie
Goncourt president François Nourissier to produce
Cats in the Louvre and Dogs in the Louvre. The
substance of these twin volumes emerges from
Foucart-Walter’s eye for the animals in the
corners, backgrounds, and occasionally the
foregrounds of some of the Louvre’s most famous
works.

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Starving a dog as “art” brings pressure on Nicaragua to adopt a humane law

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:

 

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras–Costa Rican shock
artist Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas may become a
real-life Central American counterpart of the
Ancient Mariner, whose fictional excess and
punishment helped an entire society to consider
how to respond to cruelty toward animals.
More than two million people have signed
Internet petitions denouncing Vargas. Thousands
have pledged to ensure that he will not escape
his past.
“As part of an exposition in Managua,
Nicaragua, in August,” summarized Rod Hughes of
Costa Rica News on October 4, 2007, “Vargas
allegedly found a dog tied up on a street corner
in a poor Nicaragua barrio and brought the dog to
the showing. He tied the dog, according to
furious animal lovers, in a corner of the salon,
where the dog died after a day. The exhibition
included a legend spelled out in dog food reading
‘You are what you read,’ photos, and an incense
burner that burned an ounce of marijauna and 175
‘rocks’ of crack cocaine. In the background,
according to reports, the Sandista national
anthem was played backward.

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