For some it is art and for others a regular stroll through the market place

On a bare concrete floor somewhere in New York, a man with a meat axe dismembers the front half of a pig while a woman photographs and films the process. People gather around, watching and sipping cocktails. It is the night before Halloween. After plenty of hacking, chopping, cracking and slicing, the deed is done. The pig is meat, prepared in consumption-size chunks. For the butcher, it’s a job well done.

But is it art? Lots of people, including artist Elaine Tin Nyo, who fronted the project called The Fourth Leg, Gaetano Arnone, the gentleman who did the work of dismemberment, and folks who watched the show, doubtless believe it is. Tin Nyo’s show is performance art, a spinoff from installation art, seeking to disorient or shock viewers with things or acts they’d normally never see. But for all its gore, Tin Nyo’s show wouldn’t shock or disorient Indians. What’s art in the Big Apple would be a flop show in Delhi. Why?

For decades, the West has lost touch with the origins of what it eats. Meat comes packed and cut, fish is already filleted and frozen, poultry and fowl are often in packets in the form of cubes or nuggets. For many people, it’s impossible to make the connection back from the can of turkey concentrate which they just ate, back to the big bird with wattles, or imagine that chicken nuggets are somehow derived from the feathered thing picking at grain.

Indians, spared the joys of processed food, have to go closer to the source. A trip to the fish market is a regular feature for most households; those who eat meat shop at the butcher. The gore and the grime of the market are a commonplace precursor to the preparation of a great meal. A butcher cutting meat doesn’t disorient or shock us and doesn’t classify as art. A visit to a meatpacking factory, on the other hand, might.