This story is bizarre on a number of levels. Austrian \”artist\” Wolfgang Flatz recently gave a performance consisting of his assistants dropping a dead cow from a helicopter 130 feet in the air while Flatz was suspended naked from a crane, all the while striking a crucifixion pose.

Such a performance deserved to be protested for passing itself off as art, but instead animal rights activists sued to stop the performance on animal welfare grounds. Patrizia Strunz, 13, told a Berlin court that the spectacle of watching a dead cow plummet from a helicopter would induce \”spiritual shock.\” A small group of protesters showed up to the performance and unfurled a banner reading, \”Animals have rights too.\”

An unnamed city official quoted by Reuters had the most sanguine comment noting that nothing could be done to stop the cow drop because, \”Throwing food around is not illegal.\” The cow did have to be gutted and tested for mad cow disease, however.

Animal activist Claudia Pfister, however, insisted that the cow drop could lead to copycat animal droppings, with people mesmerized by Flatz\’s \”art\” deciding to throw their dogs and cats out of windows and calling it art. Personally, I suspect the average pet owner has enough sensibility not to confuse Flatz with a genuine artist (in another stunt, Flatz was suspended upside down inside a bell, with his head bashing against the bell until he fell unconscious).

Source:

Berlin teen fails to stop flying cow spectacle. Alexander Scrimgeour, Reuters, July 20, 2001.