In August 2024, the artwork collective MSCHF launched its newest provocation: it had bought a younger cow named Angus. The calf, MSCHF defined, could be presold as 1,200 hamburgers and 4 leather-based purses dubbed “Angus Tokens” to be produced as soon as the animal reached slaughtering age. The catch? If over half of the consumers cancel their purchases by 13 March 2026 through a web based “regret portal”, Angus might be saved and reside the remainder of his life in an animal sanctuary. With simply over two months left, the cow’s destiny seems bleak as presently lower than a 3rd of consumers (31.8% as of this writing) have opted to avoid wasting Angus.
Our Cow Angus, because the challenge is known as, goals to attract consideration to the realities of the meals business. Based on the USA Division of Agriculture, roughly 32 million cattle and calves have been slaughtered within the nation for beef manufacturing in 2024. On Angus’s web site, MSCHF notes the impression of meat consumption on local weather change.
“A lot of MSCHF’s work revolves round creating unbelievable financial transactions and relationships within the business-product-consumer triad; it’s central to such speculative/important business preparations that we do precisely what we are saying we’ll,” MSCHF co-founder Kevin Wiesner tells The Artwork Newspaper.
By making Angus a spectacle, MSCHF has conceptually narrowed the hole between consumption and manufacturing, rendering his circumstances a microcosm of what occurs on an immense scale globally. Whereas humane slaughter rules exist, exposés and documentaries abound that reveal deplorable situations for a lot of animals bred for slaughter. Certainly, the artists attest that Angus has been spared from these poor situations, spending his first two years of life on an enormous farm “frolicking with nary a care”, as reported in his on-line picture diary.
A burger token (proper) and burger token packaging (left) for MSCHF’s challenge Our Cow Angus (2024-26) Courtesy MSCHF
On-line reactions on platforms like Reddit, Discord and Instagram have assorted from enthusiastic to enraged, with some calling the challenge a merciless social experiment and even a advertising rip-off. Others have implored commenters to contemplate their very own meat consumption, noting that Angus is only one cow.
“Individuals are definitely taken with Angus, and we proceed to be requested about him often,” Wiesner says. “My favorite was a bunch of scholars who stored mis-naming the challenge ‘Our Buddy Angus’.”
MSCHF is understood for cooking up tasks that elicit robust responses. In 2022, the group put in an ATM at Artwork Basel Miami Seashore with Perrotin that ranked customers by the funds of their financial institution accounts, displaying the quantity publicly on the display screen in an absurd gamification of wealth. The next yr, MSCHF created a microscopic Louis Vuitton purse barely seen to the bare eye to critique the style business. In maybe its most contentious endeavour, MSCHF partnered with musician Lil Nas X to create customized Nike sneakers with satanic imagery and a drop of human blood. The challenge garnered important backlash, together with a lawsuit from Nike and disapproval from Individuals for the Moral Therapy of Animals (Peta).
Whereas Peta didn’t reply to a request for remark relating to Our Cow Angus, the organisation informed Quick Firm in 2024: “At a time when most individuals want to see violence subtle, it’s shameful for MSCHF to make a sport out of snuffing out a life.”
For its half, MSCHF says Our Cow Angus is about “actionable particular person remorse”. Whereas the collective technically has management over Angus’s destiny, it plans to uphold the selections of the consumers. “We are going to completely flip Angus into burgers and baggage and fulfil everybody’s orders if it involves it,” says Wiesner.
Up to now, he provides, the return of Angus Tokens have been higher than the group anticipated. One of many purses initially bought for $1,200 has been returned, which represents 12.5% of the whole shares, as purses are given a considerably greater voting share than hamburgers.
The design for the purses that 4 consumers will obtain if MSCHF’s challenge Our Cow Angus (2024-26) continues on its present trajectory Courtesy MSCHF
“From messages we’ve noticed in Discord, one of many different Angus Bag holders has professed that if their bag would save Angus, they’ll give it as much as full the vote,” says Wiesner. “If true, Angus ‘solely’ wants to realize one other 18.2% ‘save’ vote earlier than reaching that threshold.”
Notably, Angus Tokens could be resold, that means that though the unique merchandise bought out, anybody who buys the tokens on the secondary market can have a say within the cow’s future.
“It provides somebody motivated to avoid wasting Angus the flexibility to purchase and subsequently hand over a number of Angus Tokens, multiplying their contribution in direction of preserving his life,” Wiesner says. “We thought it doable, for instance, that an organisation like Peta may take monetary motion to avoid wasting him. At its core, Our Cow Angus is about consumerism, and secondary market transactions are an necessary layer of that.”
Unsurprisingly, the challenge’s resale costs have elevated considerably. As of this writing a token representing a three-pack of hamburgers that initially bought for $35 is on supply for $298 on StockX. Presently, not one of the 4 purses representing the very best voting proportion are on supply, and the outlook for Angus seems robust as leather-based.
