Not only is it animal abuse, but I can't understand how he won, even from an artistic standpoint. At the risk of at first sounding cruel, I understand his objective: to display the beauty and horror of the life cycle, and present it artistically. That said, even if I step completely outside of myself emotionally and set aside the pangs I feel for that poor animal, if I look at this completely objectively as an artistic effort, I still can't see why they commended him. He was rewarded for an act that took no more effort than paying another child for a chore and gluing macaroni noodles to a wall. This is the work of a sadistic child, not a developed artist. Art imitates life, it doesn't destroy it. It shows the good and the bad through creativity, not laziness and brutality. Sadly, I admit that I tried something similar to this in high school. I brought a leaf to my teacher; I tried to turn it in saying I was "displaying the beauty that nature had created." My art teacher failed me on that project.
