Under the guise of „tradition“, thousands of bulls are literally tortured to death every year. The bulls are locked in dark stalls days before the fights. When the animals are then brought into the arena, the sun irritates their eyes, causing stress and the desired irritation. At the beginning, the toreros ram a barb into the bull‘s neck in a narrow passage, whereupon it runs into the arena, incited by pain.
Then riders stab the bull with lances and injure ligaments, tendons and fibres of the neck muscles so that the animal can no longer lift its head and the subsequent death blow becomes even easier for the bullfighter. Toreros then enter the arena on foot and stick wooden sticks with barbs about five centimetres long, so-called banderillas, into the bull‘s back. Due to the high blood loss, the animal is increasingly weakened, but in its death throes it is repeatedly incited and chased through the arena.
In a kind of „third act“, the matador tries to provoke the dying bull into attacking him one last time, only to wound his carotid artery with his dagger and a deep stab in the neck, thus killing him. If the stab misses and does not fatally wound the bull, helpers come and continue stabbing the animal.
Often the bull is still conscious at the end of the fight and is in agony in its death throes. When stabbing the bull with a dagger, the matador often hits the heart, lungs or stomach instead of the carotid artery, usually several stabs are common. In this state the bull is dragged out of the arena on chains. If the spectators are satisfied with the matador, he cuts off the ears and - in the case of a particularly „convincing kill“ - the tail of the animal to present them to the crowd as a trophy. The bull is sometimes still alive at this point.
Acryl/Canvas, 40 cm x 50 cm, 2022, 1.080 CHF
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