I apologize for the late blog, I left my book in my studio all weekend and am just now frantically reading the articles!! After ATC I just ran away from thinking about school. Apologies again.

I wanted to share a few things with the class. In correlation with the UCSC Intervention Conference, I have been working with the curator, Nomi Talisman, of Sidewalk Projections, which will take place in Santa Cruz, San Fran, and possibly here on campus at SJSU.
Here is a link of the scheduled events and participating artists:



Also I just received an email that was quiet disturbing:



The above link is a petition of an installation that originally took place in 2007 by an artist named Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, whom "took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery, and starved him to death. For several days, the ‘artist’ and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful ‘masterpiece’ based on the dog’s agony, until eventually he died. But this is not all… the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the ‘installation’ was actually art, so that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the biennial of 2008"
The above site is a blog spot, that is requesting petition signatures, there is also images of the installation.

I wonder about the limitations of art in regards to the engagement of the human condition, sufferage, and value of art if within a gallery context. If this installation is within the context of the gallery walls, does it supersede somehow what this artist is actually doing? Can anything in this in this context be considered "ART". Is the gallery the validator of art? Just a few thoughts that this email raised...thought I would pass it along