Cat-skinning 'art' triggers debate

CTV.ca staff, July 20, 2001

A controversy over a skinned cat is dividing Toronto's artistic community. The directors of an avant-garde gallery are being criticized for refusing to denounce two artists accused in the torture-killing of a cat.

Twenty-one-year-old Jesse Power, a student at the Ontario College of Art, and 24-year-old Anthony Ryan Wennekers, are charged with cruelty to animals and mischief. A third suspect is still at large.

The men allegedly taped the cat being tortured to death. Power has defended the video as a work of art -- a comment on the death and suffering of animals used for meat.

A Toronto detective said the 17-minute videotape is the most difficult thing he has ever watched.

After a couple of minutes, I was actually rooting for the cat to die to avoid the cruelties being inflicted upon it, said Det. Gordon Scott.

Powers' assertion that the video is art has outraged animal-rights activists, as well as many in the artistic community.

It reflects on us as an arts community, said artist Cathy GordonMarsh. I am very willing to say it is not art for the reason it includes an unwilling partner. It is the difference between art and snuff.'

But Jubal Brown and Daniel Borins, directors with the art gallery Art System, showed up at Power's bail hearing to defend him. Brown says he doesn't support the killing of animals, but says it is not up to him to judge what is or isn't art.

GordonMarsh disagrees, and is calling for a boycott of Art System.

The gallery is funded by the art college's student union. The chair of the student union has also said it is not its role to determine what is art.

A similar debate is also underway in Germany, where an artist dropped a dead cow stuffed with fireworks from a helicopter in a bid to get people to think about how they associate with nature.

A 13-year-old girl had gone to court to prevent the performance by Austrian artist Wolfgang Flatz, but was unsuccessful. Animal-rights demonstrators also protested at the event.

A local official told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that although the performance had provoked much criticism, it could not be banned as the dead cow had the legal status of food.