Skinned-cat artist has the fur flying once again

This is a controversy that apparently has nine lives: Check out this Fox News piece about a Dutch artist whose claim to fame is turning her cat into a purse. She is back in the spotlight, this time with a book revealing personal details about the people who wrote her hate mail to protest her so-called art.

Katinka Simonse, who also goes by the name Tinkebell, compiled all the e-mails into a book, "Dearest Tinkebell." But she also took it one step further: She used the Web to find out additional information about her pen pals -- such as their MySpace profiles and "any other embarrassing information available," and published it along with the senders' names, ages and addresses. Fox cited the English version of the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

According to the report:

Simonse was quoted in NRC as saying that "everything has been obtained legally," and all the published information already was made accessible by the people themselves.

But the book could still be taken off the market since those featured in it have not given their permission, the paper reported.

Tinkebell apparently courts controversy. Among her other projects: rescuing baby chicks and then threatening to shred them unless her audience adopted them.

-- Rene Lynch

Comments

[ina]

just want to say that the story seems to be a bit more complicated. this is a link to the artists website. just check it out.
www.tinkebell.com

ina

[sirene]

Ina, thanks for the link. It is disturbing when a news outlet like the Times takes an artist's clearly stated intention to make a statement and turns it into something simplistic and sensationalistic.