Encounter with The Sushi Puppy

Sushi Puppy made the news ("Frozen Puppy as art raises a Bisbee stink")

It’s been over 20 years since I had my encounter with The Sushi Puppy.

The Sushi Puppy was a work of art submitted for a dog art exhibit called “Dog Daze” at one of the many art galleries in the southeastern Arizona hippie town/art colony of Bisbee.

It’s here I should say my favorite quote about art: "Art is supposed to make you think.”

The Sushi Puppy made me think. It made me think that if The Sushi Puppy was art I sure could have made a lot of art in my life.

The purpose of the "Dog Daze" art exhibit was to have a show of art involving dogs.

My dogs had ripped up a down comforter and I thought about entering it. I had left them alone one afternoon and when I got back to the house the living room was a mess of feathers…all over the place.  Both dogs…a Dalmatian and a Husky stood amidst the feathers and fabric with their dog smiles.  Dogs think such a thing as a ripped up comforter is humorous or arty depending on which dog you ask.

And so I took myself down to the section of Bisbee called Brewery Gulch and walked into the Dog Daze art exhibit..

I pondered the various art exhibits that fall evening in 1997. And then I was standing in front of The Sushi Puppy.

At first I thought Sushi Puppy was quite a realistic creation by the artist of a newborn pup.  But then, I don’t remember how, I came to understand the pup wasn’t an artistic creation at all.
The Sushi Puppy was an actual factual tiny dead pup…and there it lay in a sushi bowl. 

The artist had painted the puppy's toenails and put a pink bow on top of its head. It was dark, maybe no more than 5 inches long, wrinkly and…well, dead.  There was no way to tell what kind of dog it would’ve been, they all look like a newborn puppy when they’re born.

Sushi Puppy was called Sushi Puppy because Sushi Puppy was displayed in a sushi bowl surrounded by a Japanese dining setting.

I wasn't shocked. I wasn't disgusted. I did think it weird and as such just right for Bisbee.

I had seen many weird art displays in Bisbee in my time there:  An art gallery where everything, all subjects…paintings, photo works, sculptures…. revolved around the human male reproductive organ.  The artwork that I remember most was the framed flower where every petal, and there were dozens, was the photo of an individual and unique wickerbill (as they call a “thing” in The Great American Southwest).  There were big ones, small ones, turgid ones, relaxed, circumcised, uncircumcised, black, white, in-between.  I pondered where someone might hang this particular work…on sale for “just” $1000.

Other Bisbee art I had seen included lampshades that had unique drawings on them.  Thing was these drawings were child-like but people were paying up to $100 for them…because it was Bisbee.

So a dead puppy in a sushi bowl didn’t really surprise or bother me.

However, Sushi Puppy soon became national news.

People were shocked thinking animal cruelty had been committed.  It hadn’t.  It turns out Sushi Puppy was a stillborn pup, preserved by the artist before the show in his freezer and then, just before it was supposed to be displayed, he painted its toenails, slathered it in lacquer and put it in the sushi bowl.

And then there was the politically correct crew who believed a slight had been perpetrated on the Japanese by using a dog and a sushi setting and therefore implying the Japanese ate dogs as sushi.

The story was carried from Bisbee, to Tucson to Phoenix then no doubt emerged on the national stage.

The late, great radio commentator Paul Harvey even talked about it on his radio show.

But any way you cut it the artist had accomplished his goal:  Sushi Puppy had gotten attention.  Sushi Puppy had made people think.

Probably more than my torn up down comforter would have.