There appears to be an outcry on the West Coast about the a LA warehouse show by the self-described British “art terrorist” is taking place this weekend in LA. And in it, there’s an actual live elephant, painted pink.  I picked up this story from Boing Boing.

 
The technicolor elephant lives on a private reserve in Southern California. The paint she’s wearing doesn’t hurt her, says her caretaker, and Nelly has appeared in a number of commercials and movies so she’s “used to wearing makeup.” Stil, others believe her inclusion is exploitative and abusive.

Aside from the insensitivity to animals this Pink Elephant (no…I’m not drinking) this story reminds me of a local Brooklyn painter who’s work I saw a couple of months back at the MadArts Studio opening I reviewed over at Webmetricsguru.com.   In fact, here’s the painting below:

 

Here’s what I wrote about the artist Jaclyn Mednicov, who is a cosmetics artist during the day and a painter the rest to the time.

“I especially liked a painting that I don’t have an image of - it reminded me of Botero and there’s a surreal aspect - what’s hidden (behind a wall, behind a curtin, etc). Jaclyn was also very nice to talk with.”

Why is it OK to paint a Pink Elephant from imagination but not paint a real Elephant pink?  I think we know the answer, the Elephant, but it’s an interesting word problem.  

There’s more on this debate from Boing Boing which does an execellent synopsis by pulling in Blogging.la and the LA Times:

‘Blogging.la has more here on the controversy. There’s an LA Times article here. Snip:

‘I think it sends a very wrong message that abusing animals is not only OK, it’s an art form,’ said Ed Boks, general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services. ‘We find it no longer acceptable to dye baby chicks at Easter, but it’s OK to dye an elephant.’ Boks found himself decrying the presence of the elephant in the exhibit even though his agency had issued the two permits necessary to have the elephant there - ‘to my chagrin,’ he said. He tried late Friday to revoke the permits on grounds of public safety.’Some of the experts I’ve talked to have told me there’s no way of predicting when an elephant will go berserk,’ he said. ‘We want to do what’s right by the public and the animal.’

However, Boks would have to give five days’ notice to revoke the permits. And in five days, the exhibit will be gone. It is to run today and Sunday from about noon to 8 p.m. ‘This situation is causing the department to rethink its permitting procedures so there will be more scrutiny, so permits will not be issued for such frivolous abuse of animals in the future,’ he said. Although people may be drawn for artistic reasons, he added, ‘they don’t understand what the animal is suffering. I think we’re dealing with the psychology of an animal that needs to roam over large areas of land.’