One of the most talked about exhibits during Art Basel Miami Beach was Miru Kims I Like Pigs And Pigs Like Me. For the performance, Kim spent 104 consecutive hours naked in a makeshift pen with two pigs in Primary Projects window.
The artist told Cool Hunting she felt pigs are more human-like than domestic pets like cats and dogs. Eye contact with them was shocking and mysterious, because their looks were so strange and yet so familiar. Theres no denying Kim shares a strong connection with swine.
The Basel pigs were saved from a Hialeah slaughterhouse and the artist told New Times art critic Carlos Saurez de Jesus, They will lead a very happy life and are already better off than where we found them. … We are looking to place them as pets with a family or at a community farm after the show.
But this morning, Miami New Times Riptide blog reported that a local animal rights activist said Kims pigs wound up deadly sick and mistreated:
… according to animal activist Ana Campos, Miru Kims much celebrated Art Basel performance has a filthy underbelly: art gallery Primary Flight ignored advice on how to take care of the pigs, neglected their health, and left them on a tiny Little Haiti farm taped up inside a cardboard box. The gallery didnt even donate the funds it promised to take care of them, she alleges.
When I saw them, they had pneumonia and their ribs were sticking out, Campos says. Primary Flight got a boatload of money and a boatload of attention… but the back-story is not so pretty.
Read the full article at Miami New Times, complete with photos of the pigs being rescued.
Kim, however, told HuffPost Miami that the pigs didnt develop pneumonia during the show. They were definitely already sick at the slaughterhouse, because they were coughing when the slaughterhouse worker picked them out. I was there.