VIDEO: Makin' Akin Out of Bacon

These two artists are a couple of St. Louis' best. So, this is with all due respect. The use of food as an art material seems morally and ethically troublesome, considering the number of hungry and starving people in the world. This is something my mother instilled in me early on. And to go further by utilizing the flesh of an animal seems to reflect a degree of spiritual bankruptcy, which I feel exists broadly in our culture. Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated." 

This project fails to acknowledge important ethical and political implications of using meat in artwork. This wasteful use of a dead animal excuses and accepts the oppression of animals by the meat industry and the rest of mainstream society. By using animals as an object it turns the artist into an objectifier and exploits the subjugated animal. How can an artist make a legitimate statement about the oppression of women in politics while oppressing another being through their chosen medium? All oppressions are interconnected, through criticizing Akin’s degrading and repulsive remarks you are reinforcing the degradation of animals. When Todd Akin made his highly offensive remarks about rape, it made women around the world feel powerless and overlooked.  By using bacon as an artistic medium, you are placing yourself in a position of superiority and rendering animals powerless. How is the usurpation of an animal’s power any different from this ignorant politician’s actions? In experiencing art, I don‘t mind being disturbed, upset, dismayed, or depressed, but I don‘t want to be the second hand beneficiary of violence, engaging in an act of viewing that can only exist because someone‘s death was willed, because someone‘s energy was the means to another‘s ends.  It is possible for, and many artists have, investigated aspects of objectification without oppressing individuals to produce an artwork. Objectification is reiterated when a living being is treated simply as raw material for the consumption and use of humans. It is our responsibility as artists to recognize the implications of our materials and acknowledge the effect of using a dynamically political medium.

Great, now muslim Obama can't eat him.