In August 2024, the artwork collective MSCHF launched its newest provocation: it had bought a younger cow named Angus. The calf, MSCHF defined, can 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 patrons cancel their purchases by 13 March 2026 by way of an internet “regret portal”, Angus will likely be saved and dwell 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 patrons (31.8% as of this writing) have opted to avoid wasting Angus.
Our Cow Angus, because the mission 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 affect of meat consumption on local weather change.
“A lot of MSCHF’s work revolves round creating implausible financial transactions and relationships within the business-product-consumer triad; it’s central to such speculative/vital business preparations that we do precisely what we are saying we are going to,” 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 circumstances for a lot of animals bred for slaughter. Certainly, the artists attest that Angus has been spared from these poor circumstances, spending his first two years of life on an enormous farm “frolicking with nary a care”, as reported in his on-line photograph diary.
A burger token (proper) and burger token packaging (left) for MSCHF’s mission Our Cow Angus (2024-26) Courtesy MSCHF
On-line reactions on platforms like Reddit, Discord and Instagram have diverse from enthusiastic to enraged, with some calling the mission a merciless social experiment and even a advertising rip-off. Others have implored commenters to think about 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 ceaselessly,” Wiesner says. “My favorite was a bunch of scholars who stored mis-naming the mission ‘Our Buddy Angus’.”
MSCHF is understood for cooking up tasks that elicit sturdy 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 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 footwear with satanic imagery and a drop of human blood. The mission garnered vital backlash, together with a lawsuit from Nike and disapproval from Folks for the Moral Remedy of Animals (Peta).
Whereas Peta didn’t reply to a request for remark concerning Our Cow Angus, the organisation advised Quick Firm in 2024: “At a time when most individuals want to see violence subtle, it’s shameful for MSCHF to make a recreation 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 choices of the patrons. “We are going to completely flip Angus into burgers and luggage and fulfil everybody’s orders if it involves it,” says Wiesner.
To date, 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 entire shares, as purses are given a considerably larger voting share than hamburgers.
The design for the purses that 4 patrons will obtain if MSCHF’s mission 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 are going to 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 power to purchase and subsequently surrender 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 would possibly take monetary motion to avoid wasting him. At its core, Our Cow Angus is about consumerism, and secondary market transactions are an vital layer of that.”
Unsurprisingly, the mission’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. At the moment, not one of the 4 purses representing the very best voting proportion are on supply, and the outlook for Angus seems to be robust as leather-based.
