Performance Artwork Featuring Live Dogs Generates Outcry and Sparks Environmental Rights Inquiry in Mexico City

A Nina Beier performance featuring live dogs was met with allegations of animal abuse this weekend after footage of it went viral on social media.

The piece, titled Tragedy (2011), was staged as part of a Beier show at the Museo Tamayo, one of the top art museums in Mexico City. For the performance, a group of dogs lie atop rugs, playing dead for a short duration before a trainer signals them to leave. While the dogs are neither dead nor distressed, the animals appear that way because the trainer blends in with the crowd.

Beier, who is also currently having a two-part survey staged across museums in Helsinki and Bordeaux, France, has previously staged Tragedy without controversy. It appeared at the 2011 edition of Art Basel and in shows held at Glasgow Sculpture Studios and New York’s Metro Pictures gallery.

Many social media users swiftly denounced the Museo Tamayo iteration of the piece. “It’s torture!” one X user wrote in a post that has since gained more than 2,000 likes.

Mexican politicians even ended up decrying the work. “As an animal lover, I join in condemning these events,” wrote Mexico City governor Martí Bartres. He encouraged the PAOT, a group that oversees environmental rights in Mexico, to launch an investigation.

Over the weekend, the PAOT announced that it would indeed begin an inquiry into the Museo Tamayo.

Museo Tamayo director Magali Arriola and Beier issued a statement on Saturday in which they condemned animal abuse and said that Tragedy in no way promoted it.

Noting that the Museo Tamayo is the “only museum in Mexico City that has an equal relationship with its dog community,” since outside dogs are periodically allowed to enter with their owners, Arriola and Beier said that Tragedy and other works in the show were meant to highlight how humans attempt to “master” the natural world.

“At the Tamayo Museum, dogs are part of the community of visitors and participants and are treated with dignity and respect,” they wrote.

On Sunday, the museum issued a follow-up statement in which it said that it would comply with the PAOT investigation and that the performance would not be staged again during the run of Beier’s show.