 | You might not want to hang your mouse over this one... | | You *definitely* don't want to hang your mouse over this one. Trust me on this. |
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After pickled sheep, unmade beds and painting with elephant dung, some questioned where modern art could go next.
| Not I, someone can always go lower in the name of 'art', especially in Europe, Berkeley and Greenwich Village. |
Kira O'Reilly will provide her own answer today by spending four hours naked, hugging a dead pig - at the taxpayer's expense.
| Skinny, wrinkled thing by the accompanying pic. The pig's not healthy looking either. |
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. Visitors to the Newlyn Art Gallery in Newlyn, Cornwall - funded by taxpayers and the lottery - will be allowed to watch her for ten minutes.
| In other words, a ten-minute peep show. With a dead pig. |
The gallery has defended its decision to stage the one-off show, but animal rights campaigners have labelled the performance 'sick'. 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.'
| What really annoys me is that I'm being forced to agree with the PETA spokeswitch. |
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.
| No, I don't know why the swan is plastic. |
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.'
| Kira must really be a fun date ... |
Miss O'Reilly's fee for the performance is thought to have been drawn from £30,000 given to the gallery by the Arts Council England.
| Brings a whole new meaning to bringing home the bacon. Suckers ... |
Gallery director James Green defended the show as a 'very personal piece of work'. He said: 'This is a challenging piece of work and exactly the kind of show we should be delivering.
Miss O'Reilly said yesterday: 'I am well aware of the controversy this performance will create.'
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