If you haven’t heard of Vincent J.F. Huang you wouldn’t be the only one, but this Chinese artist/activist has been creating some waves with his campaign against Global Warming featuring “suicidal penguins” in different parts of London.
His website also has a statement from the “Penguins Representative Bureau of London” explaining their “peaceful demonstration”. Now, I support this guy’s intentions wholeheartedly, but the problem for me is that it’s so hard to take it seriously. I mean all I could do when I first saw this was laugh uncontrollably and inexplicably, much to the amusement (well I say amusement, they say annoyance) of my coworkers.
I know that EVERY other global warming campaign out there has that preachy, self-righteous tone down to a tee, so the artist has to be commended for not smacking us across the face with a climatology overload (that’s the science of climate change, for those not familiar with the official terminology), but even then I just find the attack of the guerilla penguins a little too “cutesy” to really do anything about.
A closer look at the artist’s website also reveals a mildly disturbing obsession with penguins, with penguin paintings, sculptures, terracotta penguins, you name it. His stand against a global issue seems to fit in just a little too conveniently with his penguin-love. So could his campaign just be a not-so-cleverly guised attempt to extend his portfolio of penguin-themed artworks? Just saying.
