Post by guest on Sept 3, 2008 11:42:18 GMT -5
TX - Artist to feed convict to goldfish
Tasty snack? ... artist Marco Evaristti plans to feed the body of
Gene Hathorn to the fish.
A convict on death row in America has agreed to let his body be made
into a work of art if his final appeal against execution fails.
Gene Hathorn, who has been on death row since 1985, has given his
consent for artist Marco Evaristti, the bad boy of the Danish art
scene, to use his body as an art installation.
"My aim is to first deep freeze Gene's body and then make fish food
out of it. Visitors to my exhibition will be able to feed goldfish
with it," Evaristti told the Art Newspaper.
It is not the first time the artist has gained notoriety: in 2000, he
came to worldwide attention when he put live goldfish into 10
electric blenders filled with water and invited visitors to the
exhibition at Denmark's Trapholt Art Museum to switch them on.
The artist has visited Hathorn, 47, at his prison in Texas several
times in the last year, and hopes this work will go on to form part
of his wider project against capital punishment, which has included
designing clothes for prisoners to wear on their execution day.
Evaristti does not think his plan is unethical. "The real problem is
legally killing people," he said.
The artist has previously campaigned on issues of territorial
boundaries and environmental pollution by spray-painting an entire
iceberg red in Greenland in 2004. In June last year he was arrested
while trying to do the same to the peak of Mont Blanc.
According to Evaristti, lawyers in the US doubt whether Hathorn's
testament, which bequeaths his body to the artist, is valid.
Hathorn has been awaiting execution after being found guilty of the
murder of his father, stepmother and stepbrother in 1985.
His friend James Beathard was also convicted for the murders on the
testimony of Hathorn, who believed he would be spared as a result.
When prosecutors reneged on the deal, Hathorn recanted his testimony,
but it was too late to beat a 30-day deadline following Beathard's
conviction and he was executed by lethal injection in 1999.
www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/02/marco.evaristti.art
Tasty snack? ... artist Marco Evaristti plans to feed the body of
Gene Hathorn to the fish.
A convict on death row in America has agreed to let his body be made
into a work of art if his final appeal against execution fails.
Gene Hathorn, who has been on death row since 1985, has given his
consent for artist Marco Evaristti, the bad boy of the Danish art
scene, to use his body as an art installation.
"My aim is to first deep freeze Gene's body and then make fish food
out of it. Visitors to my exhibition will be able to feed goldfish
with it," Evaristti told the Art Newspaper.
It is not the first time the artist has gained notoriety: in 2000, he
came to worldwide attention when he put live goldfish into 10
electric blenders filled with water and invited visitors to the
exhibition at Denmark's Trapholt Art Museum to switch them on.
The artist has visited Hathorn, 47, at his prison in Texas several
times in the last year, and hopes this work will go on to form part
of his wider project against capital punishment, which has included
designing clothes for prisoners to wear on their execution day.
Evaristti does not think his plan is unethical. "The real problem is
legally killing people," he said.
The artist has previously campaigned on issues of territorial
boundaries and environmental pollution by spray-painting an entire
iceberg red in Greenland in 2004. In June last year he was arrested
while trying to do the same to the peak of Mont Blanc.
According to Evaristti, lawyers in the US doubt whether Hathorn's
testament, which bequeaths his body to the artist, is valid.
Hathorn has been awaiting execution after being found guilty of the
murder of his father, stepmother and stepbrother in 1985.
His friend James Beathard was also convicted for the murders on the
testimony of Hathorn, who believed he would be spared as a result.
When prosecutors reneged on the deal, Hathorn recanted his testimony,
but it was too late to beat a 30-day deadline following Beathard's
conviction and he was executed by lethal injection in 1999.
www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/02/marco.evaristti.art