''Helena'' was an art installation by

Marco Evaristti Marco Evaristti (born 1963) is a Chilean artist who has lived in Denmark since the 1980s. While a trained and practicing architect, he is best known for hosting a dinner party where the main course was agnolotti pasta that was topped with a meatba ...

originally at the

Trapholt Trapholt is a museum of contemporary art and design located in Kolding, Denmark. It opened in 1988 and was previously named Trapholt Kunstmuseum (Trapholt Museum of Art) but its increasing focus on the broader arts lead to its shortened name. It ...

museum in 2000. The art was a room with 10

blenders A blender (sometimes called a mixer or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary blender consists of a blender container with a rotating me ...

, each of which contained a

goldfish The goldfish (''Carassius auratus'') is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. It is commonly kept as a pet in indoor aquariums, and is one of the most popular aquarium fish. Goldfish released into the wild have ...

. The fish were vulnerable to any visitor to the exhibit who chose to turn on a blender and kill them. During the exhibition two fish were killed in this way. Persons present at the initial exhibition of the installation noted that "numerous media representatives who were present...virtually encouraged the visitors to press the button in order to initiate a scandal”. One interpretation of the art is that humans have the power to destroy nature anywhere, not only in art galleries, but putting this choice in an art gallery makes that power more visible. Various reviewers commented further on the work. A researcher remarked that the exhibit started intense discussion about animal rights and artistic freedom. The director of the museum was charged with the crime of animal cruelty for hosting the exhibition, but did not receive a conviction. In 2008, Evaristti announced that he and musician Kenneth Thordal were planning another artwork involving goldfish, called FIVE2TWELVE. At this exhibition, the body of American death row inmate Gene Hathorn Jr. would be turned into

freeze-dried Freeze drying, also known as lyophilization or cryodesiccation, is a low temperature dehydration process that involves freezing the product and lowering pressure, removing the ice by sublimation. This is in contrast to dehydration by most conve ...

fish food and placed in front of a pool of goldfish, and the audience would have to choose between feeding the fish with freeze-dried human meat and letting them starve to death. The plans were abandoned the following year, when Hathorn's sentence was commuted to three concurrent

life sentences Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes ...

.FIVE2TWELVE
from Evaristti Studios

References

External link

Installation description on the artist's website
2000 works Animals in art {{Art-stub