AP- Piglets will be left to starve in a controversial art exhibit in Denmark - "something is rotten in the state of Denmark"

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By VANESSA GERA
Updated 1:20 PM EST, February 28, 2025


An artist in Denmark aims to raise awareness of the suffering caused by modern pig production with an art installation that opened Friday that includes three piglets who will be denied food and water and will starve to death.

Chilean-born Marco Evaristti is courting controversy to make a point about the treatment of pigs in Denmark, where about 25,000 piglets die daily as a result of the conditions in which they are bred.
The central exhibit at Copenhagen’s “And Now You Care” exhibition is a makeshift cage created with shopping carts containing three piglets. As the exhibition opened Friday evening, they were still fine, but they will not be given food and drink, and can be expected to die of hunger within a few days.
Evaristti says on his Instagram page that the exhibition “is a confrontation with Denmark’s bloody reality” in slaughterhouses, and that he urges people to reduce their meat consumption and support agriculture that improves animal welfare.

Denmark’s largest and oldest animal welfare organization, Animal Protection Denmark, says it is grateful for Evaristti’s interest in the problem, but disagrees with how he wants to convey it.


“We completely understand the indignation” of the artist, said Birgitte Damm, a spokesperson for the organization. “But we do not agree that three piglets, three individual living beings, should be starved and prevented from drinking until they die from it. It is illegal and it is abuse of the animals.”


“The fact that happens to thousands each day in the industry doesn’t make it right,” she said. But she also praised the artist for asking “the large questions about who we are as human beings or want to be, and what we are doing to fellow creatures in the name of enormous amounts of mass-produced cheap meat.”

Damm explained that sows are bred in the Danish pig industry to produce about 20 piglets at a time, but only have 14 teats, forcing the piglets to compete for breastmilk, and leading to the starvation of many. She said some 25,000 piglets die every day from starvation or the result of the conditions in which they are held in Denmark.

It’s not Evaristti’s first controversial project.

One of his projects included goldfish in blenders, tempting viewers to press the button and create goldfish soup.

In 2006 he used some of his own body fat removed via liposuction to prepare meatballs, and then ate some of them.

He described that project called “Polpette Al Grasso Di Marco” as a critique on people overconsuming and then buying their way to slimness with liposuction, and at the same time an attempt to transcend the taboo of cannibalism.
 
Apparently Danes like animal abuse?

Mister-Psychology 7 points 1 day ago
Danish post-modern art scene has always tortured animals. Started with horses being slaughtered on camera to cause controversy. Then a fish in a blender any museum visitor could start with a press of a button. Animal protection laws are quite behind the times in Denmark furthermore the population is extremely pro animal protection so it makes it possible for these people to gain fame overnight. Hundreds of years ago the nation wiped out the natural forests to build fancy buildings for the king so there is little proper wild nature in the country.
I don't understand any post-modern art so to me it all seems crazy.

[–]mg10ppItaly 7 points 1 day ago
Damn it's not related to art but you brought back a memory that I would have preferred to remain forgotten, which is when about 10 years ago a Danish zoo killed a giraffe and cut it in pieces for some reason I don't remember, and they did it all in front of the public including many kids...

[–]VorHerreTilHest 1 point 20 hours ago
You and many others should probably read up on that story. The giraffe was inbred, so it could not go to another zoo, it had to be put down. The slaughter (not the killing) and feeding was indeed done in front of an audience, yes many of them small children. This is part of an educational system teaching biology in schools. If this offends you in any way, you really need to go all out vegan (and I can respect that). But to tout this off as a great act of animal cruelty and continue to eat industry produced meat is beyond hypocrisy…
 
This was the plan all along. Now he can be a stunning and brave controversial "artist" without facing the consequences of doing anything controversial.
I’d say he isn‘t someone you want to bluff with since he has done previous sadistic shit for ‘art’ like the blood and stuff from accidents and goldfish blender.
 
"This is part of an educational system teaching biology in schools. If this offends you in any way, you really need to go all out vegan (and I can respect that). But to tout this off as a great act of animal cruelty and continue to eat industry produced meat is beyond hypocrisy…"

What is this person going on about. People don't eat fucking giraffes and while there are issues with industrial scale farming, there are laws regulating it and the animals are stunned before slaughter. They're taken care of up to that point because their meat would be fucknasty and poor quality if they weren't. These people don't do "art" like this to be activists, they do it because they're exhibitionists, and they like doing things like traumatizing young children by cutting up animals in front of them.
 
"This is part of an educational system teaching biology in schools. If this offends you in any way, you really need to go all out vegan (and I can respect that). But to tout this off as a great act of animal cruelty and continue to eat industry produced meat is beyond hypocrisy…"
There may be something to be said for making slaughtering, butchering, cooking and eating an animal on your own a rite of passage. Humans evolved to eat meat after all, we've all collectively become too estranged from where our food comes from, and this results in manmade horrors beyond the comprehension of most. The thing is you should do it with a fish or a chicken, and you have a moral obligation to be as expedient as possible about the matter and waste as little of the animal as possible in the process.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the proposal, this wackadoo needs to see the inside of a prison cell, at the minimum. Sick fuck.
 
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There may be something to be said for making slaughtering, butchering, cooking and eating an animal on your own a rite of passage. Humans are meant to eat meat after all, and we've all collectively become too estranged from where our food comes from, and this results in manmade horrors beyond the comprehension of most. The thing is you should do it with a fish or a chicken, and you have a moral obligation to be as expedient as possible about the matter and waste as little of the animal as possible in the process.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the proposal, this wackadoo needs to see the inside of a prison cell, at the minimum. Sick fuck.
Yeah but these are clearly different scenarios. One is something done for learning how to survive, manage wildlife/farm animals, and likely something that you know is coming and is built up to. And the other is just explicit violence happening in front of you in a messy way that you were unprepared for. It's like the difference between someone preparing a turkey for dinner on a cooking show and then some rando instead staring creepily at the camera like fingering the the stuffing inside for five minutes straight. You can argue there is overlap between these scenarios but the context and intent are different and we know that.
 
Yeah but these are clearly different scenarios. One is something done for learning how to survive, manage wildlife/farm animals, and likely something that you know is coming and is built up to. And the other is just explicit violence happening in front of you in a messy way that you were unprepared for. It's like the difference between someone preparing a turkey for dinner on a cooking show and then some rando instead staring creepily at the camera like fingering the the stuffing inside for five minutes straight. You can argue there is overlap between these scenarios but the context and intent are different and we know that.

Agreed. I've never seen a farmer, rancher or hunter engage in such wanton brutality as Marco for any reason, never mind for the sole purpose making an activistic shitlib statement. I think Marco's next exhibition should be him being publicly flogged.
 
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Grew up on a farm, we raised pigs. Always liked looking at the baby pigs. Don't believe what they say about Danish pigs producing 20 pigs per litter. In 23 the average was 15.6 pigs per litter. Taking that into account don't see how you would lose 25,000 piglets a day. Denmark is a small country.



Having said that, we drew lots for the mission. Milton, please warm up the helicopter, you're flying left seat. Check ride for you, I'm check pilot. Janet, please fly right seat. Anita and Ken, please assist Mike, the crew chief, after the rest of us have completed the special processing.
It depends on how sows are kept with piglets, sows will just crush a bunch of their litter and not give a shit. I know young sows will panic eat their piglets if they think you are a threat.

Pigs are very smart, but awful mothers.
 
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