“New law proposed in response to exhibition: It would criminalise those who harm animals when making art”

Sounds like a logical proposition, right? Not when such a law is based on an artwork that was created to bring attention to the slaughter animals face—not because of the artist, but farmers. As The Art Newspaper reported, Algerian-French Adel Abdessemed made a video installation to demonstrate the killing of farm animals, which raised legislators’ attention when it was shown at the San Francisco Art Institute. The Institute closed the show after receiving death threats from animal rights extremists. “The SFAI says that Abdessemed was documenting traditional methods of food production in Mexico and that no gratuitous violence took place to make the videos,” the paper reported. It seems to me that Abdessemed was taping something that would have occurred with or without his presence, and in the same vile manner, and he wanted the public to know what otherwise would have been hidden from them. Is that not the essence of a documentary?

And then the law proposal emerges. What does this pending law tell us? Not that killing animals is wrong. No. The person who brought such a horror to the public attention (yet again, since we never seem to get the hint) is being silenced while those who write death threats against their own kind are rewarded.

Abdessemed is someone fighting for social causes, for the good of man—and animal—kind, using art as his platform. Would attempts be made to silence a journalist in the same way? In all likelihood, a journalist would have been rewarded for bringing this issue to public attention. Perhaps the farm where the documentary was filmed would be fined, suspended, or even shut down completely. If Abdessemed was a journalist, rather than an artist.

Maybe that’s a strong statement. Either way, the Institute should have stood its ground, perhaps requesting protection from the government. Instead, the government’s response was completely backwards, and such thoughtless acts against artists should not be tolerated. Neither should the slaughter of animals—so maybe the headline should have read, “New law proposed in response to exhibition: It would criminalize those who harm animals” Period.

Click here to read the original article that caused such outrage.