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Topic spans: 1990 - 1999
End of a Century: Remembering the 1990s
Nelson Mandela gained his freedom, the United States went to war in Iraq and Diana, Princess of Wales, died in Paris. These were some of the big events of the 1990s, which was also when Generation X emerged and "a network called internet" caught on. CBC Digital Archives remembers the last decade of the 20th century.
14 television clips
1 radio clips
Squishing Sniffy
Broadcast Date: Jan. 6, 1990
A 25-kilogram concrete block, suspended above a canvas, awaits Sniffy the Rat. The furry, brown and white rat faces a morbid death as part of Vancouver artist Rick Gibson's performance art piece. The public execution is planned to take place in front of the Vancouver library today, where Sniffy will be flattened between the canvas and another one attached to the bottom of the concrete block.Gibson says Sniffy, a pet store rat, is better off going this way rather than his likely fate of slow and painful reptile consumption. But Vancouverites are outraged and try to stop the performance. They swarm the artist and one man whacks Gibson on the head with the heel of his hand, yelling, "They should drop a brick on your head!"
Squishing Sniffy
• Gibson was never able to go through with squishing Sniffy. An animal rights group stole the concrete blocks from his van and an angry and violent crowd of 300 persuaded Gibson to return Sniffy to the pet store unharmed.• When Gibson first announced what he intended to do for his performance art he said that after dropping the concrete block he would peel apart the canvases to create a diptych, two paintings thematically linked on separate panels.
• One woman reacting to Gibson's art said it's "like taking someone who's going to be killed and saying I'm going to kill them, too."
• A trend of violent performance art developed in the United States and in Europe. In 1971, for his installation Shoot, artist Chris Burden persuaded a friend to shoot him in the arm. For other exhibits, Burden has dragged himself across broken glass, has been crucified and nearly electrocuted.
Squishing Sniffy
Medium: Television
Program: The National
Broadcast Date: Jan. 6, 1990
Guest(s):
Host: Knowlton Nash
Reporter: Karen Webb
Duration: 2:12
Last updated:
March 16, 2011
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Squishing Sniffy.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: March 16, 2011.
[Page consulted on Feb. 12, 2012.]