Guggenheim Exhibit With Video of Dogs Trying to Fight Stirs Criticism<br />The museum tried to tamp down the criticism on Thursday night, announcing in a statement<br />that the piece, "Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other," would stay in the exhibition even though "the work may be upsetting." The seven-minute clip shows four pairs of American pit bulls charging each other but unable to touch because they are running on nonmotorized treadmills.<br />21, 2017<br />Two weeks before a much-anticipated exhibition featuring Chinese conceptual artists opens at the Guggenheim, the<br />museum is facing intense pressure to exclude one piece of art: a video of dogs trying to fight one another.<br />(In 2000, their transfused blood was injected into the corpse of conjoined babies in the performance piece "Body Link.") "Shame on the ‘artists’ for<br />using animals in their pitch for sensationalism," one reader wrote in the comments of a New York Times article this week about the Guggenheim show.<br />"Shame on you Guggenheim for prompting heinous animal cruelty under the guise of ‘art.’" In an interview last year, Mr. Sun and Ms. Peng defended "Dogs<br />That Cannot Touch Each Other" and dismissed claims of animal cruelty.<br />Guggenheim said that The curators of the exhibition hope<br />that viewers will consider why the artists produced it and what they may be saying about the social conditions of globalization and the complex nature of the world we share,<br />The three-month show, "Art and China After 1989," opens Oct. 6 in the New York City museum and will feature about 150 pieces of experimental art.
