No, Zoo Animals Don’t Make “Art”

From the Huffington Post, yet another article about clever animals making “art.”

Maggie the Porcupine (Courtesy of Tulsa Zoo)

As much as someone apparently wants to believe that Maggie the Porcupine creates “lush ruminations on life,” as much was you want to believe that the accidental brushstrokes of some captive primate rise to the level of art, it isn’t true. Suggesting it is trivializes the creative process and denigrates the work of every artist everywhere. Please do art a big favor and shut the hell up.

We can all believe that some artists suck. They do. Some things that pass as art are monumentally stupid. But human artists exercise some creative choice that other animals can’t. Especially porcupines. Porcupines are stupid even compared with other stupid animals. No matter how much you hate Abstract Expressionism, you can’t compare Maggie the Porcupine’s work with Jackson Pollock’s.

It’s cute and funny and (dare I say it?) whimsical. But it isn’t art. Even the zoo animals who were stoned on tranquilizers weren’t “creating” no matter how generously you want to define creativity.

Knock it off.

Penguin Feet (Courtesy of Tulsa Zoo)