Guillermo Vargas (Habacuc)

Born 1975 in San José, this self-taught Costa Rican artist works under the name Habacuc across photography, painting, video and performance. He became internationally notorious in 2007 when, for a show at Galería Códice in Managua, Nicaragua, he tied a starving street dog to the gallery wall beneath the dog-food-lettered phrase "Eres lo que lees" ("You are what you read"), sparking global outrage and disputed claims over the animal's fate. The work forced questions about selective compassion and spectatorship toward everyday cruelty to strays. Vargas has since represented Costa Rica at the Bienal Centroamericana and Bienal del Istmo, remaining a confrontational conceptual provocateur.