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Craig Hill
Oracle of DelphiMummified dog provokes local outcry
September 22nd 2006 22:58
Here's a weird one for you.The mummified body of a small dog, lying on a magnificent 18th century embroidered bedspread, has unleashed a torrent of emotion at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. There have been complaints to the trustees and to the local council.
Regular visitors to the gallery are well used to its eclectic mixture of contemporary and conceptual art, antique furniture and paintings, in period rooms.
However, director Stefan van Raay said that although the gallery expected the dog to be an emotive piece, the response had astonished everyone.
A visitor wrote: "I have never seen anything so disgusting in my life. If this is modern "art" I despair of the mentality of people." Another wrote: "I find the dog induces meditation on death and isolation. It is beautiful and restful."
The installation is called The Whippet, and is the work of Langlands and Bell, award winning artists who have worked as a team since they met at art college more than 20 years ago. They have been chosen by the Imperial War Museum as official war artists to travel to Afghanistan, where the line between life and death is even more thinly drawn than in Chichester.
Whatever.
Regular visitors to the gallery are well used to its eclectic mixture of contemporary and conceptual art, antique furniture and paintings, in period rooms.
However, director Stefan van Raay said that although the gallery expected the dog to be an emotive piece, the response had astonished everyone.
A visitor wrote: "I have never seen anything so disgusting in my life. If this is modern "art" I despair of the mentality of people." Another wrote: "I find the dog induces meditation on death and isolation. It is beautiful and restful."
The installation is called The Whippet, and is the work of Langlands and Bell, award winning artists who have worked as a team since they met at art college more than 20 years ago. They have been chosen by the Imperial War Museum as official war artists to travel to Afghanistan, where the line between life and death is even more thinly drawn than in Chichester.
Whatever.
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