Throwing Stones from a Broken Glass House

By Kanrei

I recently found myself stuck agreeing with someone I do not like. It feels wrong. There are reasons why you don't like a person and agreeing with them, even once, seems to weaken your case against them. I find myself in the same spot again.

Kira O'Reilly is something. I know she calls herself an artist, but I just don't see it. I see her as a girl with many many issues that she needs to deal with. I see her as a beacon of depravity, symbolic of a society she thinks she mocks. Her "art" seems to consist of indulging in peoples voyeuristic and sadistic impulses.

Her latest piece is called "Inthewrongplaceness". It is currently on display (or is it being performed) at the Newlyn Art Gallery in PenzanceI, England. It consists of people being allowed entrance one at a time for up to ten minutes at a time. What they see is Kira O'Reilly sitting in a bed, naked with a dead pig in her lap. No, seriously. If you are brave, curious, or just sick, the photo is behind this link. Again, this is a picture of a naked woman with a dead pig. You have been warned.

I looked her up at the British Council Arts page to try and understand this latest piece of something she is performing. They list some of her current projects and I am really afraid of this lady right now.

Again, from British Council Arts, I found other performances that I find unsettling. Her show View (nearer to the time) is one where the artist and audience negotiate cutting on the artist's body or not. Action for... allows the audience individual experiences of "intimacy and tenderness" with this woman. Harvest is a video installation looking at openings in the skin. Blood Wall Drawings is, you guessed it, drawings made from Kira O’Reilly's own blood.

Self mutilation is never art and having other mutilate you is even less artisic. She is sick. She needs help. She is not an artist in any context I have ever seen the word and I have used it to describe the "Jim Rose Circus Sideshow" in some intoxicated moments.

Protesting this piece of "art" is, you guessed it. No, not the Christian right! It's PETA, or as I like to think of them: Project Economic Terrorism Agenda. These are truly sick and depraved people. They stand for something noble, and degrade their cause by their tactics.

It is a risky move to oppose a group that has such a noble cause. It makes you appear to not support their end-goal. Nothing can be further from the truth. I support an end to animal testing and I think fur coats are a pointless excess that should have ended long ago. That does not mean I agree with the way PETA brings these issue to the forefront.

I cannot approve of destroying private property because you oppose the industry behind it. I cannot support harassment and assault to show how kind you are. I really cannot stand any organization that uses kids against their parents. Kira O'Reilly does not hand her filth out to children. Can PETA claim the same innocence?

"Your Mommy Kills Animals!" is a comic book that was handed out by PETA to children in 2003 outside performances of the Nutcracker. They are using children against their parents to push their agenda. That is disgusting; almost as disgusting as this "art" performed by Kira O'Reilly.

"Lots of wonderful foxes, raccoons, and other animals are kept by mean farmers who squish them into cages so small that they can hardly move. They never get to play or swim or have fun. All they can do is cry-just so your greedy mommy can have that fur coat to show off in when she walks the streets."

What side do I take? It is my nature to take a side when I so oppose something, but I oppose both sides on this one. She is a sick, twisted, and depraved symptom of a sick, twisted, and depraved society and the other is a terrorist organization pushing an extremist agenda. I think I side with Kira O'Reilly simply because I never would have heard of this if not for PETA's protest of it. They shined a spotlight on something that would have failed and now will succeed from the pure curiosity factor.

Yet another case of Reactionary Protester Syndrome. RPS is responsible for more cases of self-fulfilling prophecy and the success of more bad entertainment ventures than any amount of brain-washed impressionable youth.

For the record, the person I hate that I agreed with was Justin Timberlake. See Here for More