ART

From the “But is it art?” file: A Harvard art teacher has given her class a flighty bit of homework--deliver a live chicken to a slaughterhouse (after having lived with it for a day), watch it be butchered, cook and eat it . . . and then make a sculpture from the bones. Ritsuko Taho, a lecturer who teaches the school’s “Fundamentals of Sculpture” course, said the unusual assignment forced the students to reconsider the art-object relationship. “Because they will have eaten it, the chicken will be part of (the students’) bodies,” Taho said. “This experience will expand their imagination and understanding.” Students, however, squawked at the task. Said one: “(The ill-starred chicken) would be like a pet, and to take your pet and have it killed is not a comfortable thing.”