I Want To Talk About Something That Means A Lot To Me
Ok, so there’s this Dutch artist, Katinka Simonse, and she seems to want to be one of those “shock value” artists (like Andres Serrano and his “Piss Christ”). Basically this is my rant on the subject and everyone else can go fuck themselves. So, if you know me, you know that I get a lot of inspiration from animals and a lot of my ideas have come from the roles in which man and beast play and how they interact with each other.
Anyway, back to Katinka Simonse (aka TINKEBELL), so she is a “shock value” artist but I, personally, don’t think she quite knows what she wants to say, but she just wants to be heard. Who doesn’t? Basically, she uses a lot of dead animals (like the cat above) in her art. She got a lot of heat for killing and skinning her own cat and making it into a handbag. But some people don’t know that the cat was ill and dying and needed to be put down. So she could have paid to have it euthanized, or she could make it into something to keep the memory of her beloved kitty alive. She chose plan B. And I don’t blame her, I plan to do the same thing when my little fat ass croaks. The media has made her out to be this animal killing monster. I don’t agree, but I’m not saying she is completely sinless in her actions. I can’t say for sure if this information was just a smear campaign to force her to stop what she’s doing or not, but according to the unreliable internet and all its hate, Tinkebell has been noted for having hundreds of hamsters kept in rolling spheres, she numbers her snails by writing on their shells to keep inventory, remote controlled guineas pigs, all of which held in horrible conditions, and even throwing day old chicks into a paper shredder. The internet comes up with mean things so I’m not totally trusting this. When people don’t understand things, they make these things out to be from the pits of hell. Now, the idea Tinkebell says she wants to portray is something I can totally agree with and relate to and that is: To comment on the hypocrisy of the public and how they refuse to see the dirty side of business. She challenges the fact that it’s more acceptable to have baby chicks thrown against walls of barns but the fact that those ‘barely legal hot girl’ sites and as popular as the are is just fine. She wants to shock people into living differently. She doesn’t believe in the consumption of meat (i agree) or how factories produce their ‘products’. She’s trying to open the blinded eyes of the public, and that is the whole point of art. So these things are all things I completely agree with that she does.
My problems: I want to know if those things about the animals she has and their living conditions are true, and there’s no way for me to know for sure unless I went to see her and this place personally because the internet is a fucking liar. But I would like to know. Also, I understand the thought process behind “shock value”, but it’s difficult for me to see how an “animal rights activist” expresses their feelings by killing animals that are no way unhealthy or near death… But just for the sake of killing it and showing how terrible it is. I mean, there is always another way to do this. The wonderful taxidermy artist Sarina Brewer does this by recycling nature. She makes her (wonderful) art by getting animals that have already died from either natural causes or she uses the left overs from butcher shops that would otherwise be wasted. She respects animals and believes that no part of them should go to waste. She in no way causes harm to any living thing. She is fantastic. And I think that Tinkebell could do everything she does now, but do it the way Brewer does. Her argument would be impenetrable.
In conclusion, I’m very conflicted with this. The work of Katinka Simonse is very beautiful and moving. She makes me think and ponder. She did a series on Baby Chicks and their Love stories that would never be. She put a wind up music box into a lifeless baby chick and the viewer would crank it and it produces a heart wrenching sound. She wanted to comment on the fact that baby chicks are living creatures that deserve to live life as well. They only live one day, and their love stories never happen. When I saw this, I was on the edge of tears. So all in all, her work is fantastic but at what cost? It’s almost similar to that idea, “Going to war to stop war was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” or something rather. She doesn’t want these animals to be killed, but she kills them to talk about not killing them… ? It’s so close but no cigar. Part of me loves her and looks up to her, and the other part of me somewhat resents her. I don’t know. But I like that she can make me feel that way. It’s kind of fantastic.
Anyway, bla bla bleep bloop bloop. Love, jenn.
