Can We Use Living Beings for Art?: Anicka Yi's "Lifestyle War"
Should life be cheapened to make an ironic statement that "Life Is Cheap"?
Anicka Yi's works presented at the Guggenheim Museum, in celebration of her receipt of the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize, makes you question the tight rope artists walk on: how much of ethics should we relinquish in the name of Art?
In this exhibition, "Life Is Cheap," she presents three works.
The first is what looks like three stainless barrels of insecticide that are supposed to exude the scent of carpenter ants and Asian American women. From the wall text, I read that one of her primary instrument is not paint, not stone, but scent. Unfortunately, I could not smell any distinct scent. It just smelled like any other museum. Perhaps it's because the exhibition was coming to an end and the scent has evaporated. Still, the idea of introducing the audience to another world with the sense of scent was intriguing; it also reminded me of the chocolate-syrupy smell of stage blood at Punchdrunk's Sleep No More. Museums rarely engage the audience through any sense other than vision. So for that, I admired her approach.
Then walking deeper into the exhibition hall and to the left, I saw a white room behind a glass wall. It looked as if it was straight out of dystopian sci-fi mental clinic. Almost entirely white, except for some stains. When I looked closer, I realized that it was not just any stain. It didn't look like it was painted. It was no other than bacteria!
The wall text introduced the work as Force Majeure, made of plexiglas, aluminum, agar, bacteria, refrigeration system, LED lights, and so on. It was also made in consultation with biology Ph. D. students at Columbia University. I admired the miles this artist has gone to create this work. So far, I was not feeling any ethical conundrum. I'm sure we are not aware but we do see some bacteria on Van Gogh's Starry Night anyway. When I turned my head to the right, my eyes met another work: Lifestyle War.
At first, I thought this was just a very "high-tech-looking" work with what looks like lit circuits and reflective surfaces. It was a grievous assumption. Anicka Yi's work is totally lost on casual views who do not observe closely.
In the circuits, there were live ants. Yup, you read that right. Live ants. For a moment, I hoped that these were robots that look like real ants. But no. They were real ants. If you want fancy Latin name, Formicidae, they were.
Well to be more precise, there were some dead ants, too. Quite honestly, I was surprised that the PETA had not made any statement against this piece.
I simply may have missed it because there are far too many corners in the circuit, but I could not find any feed for the ants. Are they locked up in this "piece of art" to be starved to death? I certainly hope not. Even if they are prisoners in this work, I hope at least they had something to eat. And what's to become of these ants after the exhibition? Are they gonna be sent to a lab? Are they gonna be set free in nature? What's the plan?
Did this work, as a whole, especially seen from afar, look stunning? Yes, aesthetically, it looked interesting. Was it ethically sound? I'm not so sure. Did the artist have to include live insects to make a statement about art?
I believe the title of her exhibition, "Life Is Cheap," was supposed to be ironic. I believe what she wanted to say was that "No, life is not cheap. The lives of carpenter ants, Asian American women, and bacteria are not cheap. They are not for sale. They are priceless." Yet, by exhibiting these live ants for the view of curious lookers--remember, these "performers" cannot give consent to be presented as a piece of art--it ironically raises the question about the value of life. Would the museum-goers be okay if the same work was made with much larger animals such as kittens or puppies? Turtles? How advanced should living beings be for us to consider that using them as "material" may be unethical? Where do we draw the line?
