Three Starving Piglets Rescued from Art Project Distressing Danish Sausage Shoppers

Mar 7

Mar 7 Three Starving Piglets Rescued from Art Project Distressing Danish Sausage Shoppers

Three baby pigs were stolen from an art exhibition in Copenhagen last week, and that’s the good news. The pigs would have been allowed to starve to death – just as the artist intended – in a misguided attempt to draw attention to animal welfare in Denmark.

Controversial artist/provocateur Marco Evaristti, who was born in Chile but has lived in Denmark since the 1980s, tells ABC News that his exhibition “And Now You Care?” was meant to “wake up the Danish society” to the mistreatment of pigs in his adopted country.

The exhibition, which had been installed inside a former butcher’s warehouse in the Meatpacking District of Copenhagen, featured three live piglets caged within shopping carts on a pile of straw. The pigs were given water but no food and were expected to die of starvation within five days. Evaristti said he wouldn't eat or drink for the duration of this cruelty.

Fortunately for all involved this travesty did not get beyond day two, when animal-welfare group De Glemte Danske rescued the piglets — which by then had been named Lucia, Simon, and Benjamin. Their whereabouts remain unknown and no charges have been filed against the group.

As for raising awareness, some things are definitely rotten in Denmark. An estimated 25,000 piglets die each day, many from starvation, because the country’s sows are bred to birth 20 piglets – but have only 14 teats with which to feed them. The country remains a major exporter of pork.

Evaristti has created controversial art before. In 2000 he displayed 10 goldfish in blenders in a Danish museum, inviting visitors to turn on the machines (some did so). In 2007 Evaristti hosted a dinner party where he served meatballs made with his own fat, saved from a liposuction procedure.

Evaristti says he wants to revive the piglet exhibition, this time without the cruelty. One idea is to display already-dead piglets, perhaps ones stolen from an abattoir. Another is to present live piglets — not to starve, but to auction off to the highest bidder who promises them a happy life.

“I got a lot of hate messages from around the world — I think people don't get that my art is about animals’ rights,” Evaristti said.