This week the Guggenheim Museum is forced to keep the defense after activists of the animal rights thought that several works in the upcoming exhibition are related to cruelty to animals.

Opponents of the exhibition «Art and China after 1989: theater of the world» especially not like a video which depicted four pairs of dogs on treadmills facing each other. In a seven-minute video of a dog trying to get closer to one another, but they do not succeed. Activists feel it is mockery of animals and require the deletion of video, a fragment from the exposition.

The Museum protects the installation, which, incidentally, is called «Dogs that cannot touch each other», and explains that the dogs in the video have never participated in the fighting. These pictures were taken in the Museum of Beijing in 2003. The authors of the video are Chinese artists Peng Yu and sun yuan. The exhibition’s curators acknowledge that the exhibits may upset some viewers, however, they hope that these emotions will make the audience thinkthat his work was trying to tell artists.

In addition, one of the major works of the exhibition, which inspired the creators of the show call it the «Theatre of the World», is a kind of barrier, filled with «hundreds of live reptiles» who devour any other insects. This extremely graphic installation is a figment of the imagination of the artist Huang Yun Pina, and it has previously been exhibited in Vancouver in 2007, where it was removed prematurely because of the actions of activists.

In the petition, which gathered for about 45 000 online signatures, the Guggenheim Museum is accused of «animal abuse in the name of art». The opening was scheduled for 6 October.

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