Naked woman hugs dead pig on stage, ART!

After pickled sheep, unmade beds and painting with elephant dung, some questioned where modern art could go next.

Kira O'Reilly will provide her own answer today by spending four hours naked, hugging a dead pig - at the taxpayer's expense.

The controversial Irish performance artist will invite one person at a time to watch her sit in a specially-constructed set and perform a 'crushing slow dance' with the carcass in her arms.

She claims the bizarre exhibition is an attempt to 'identify' with the pig, which she cuts with a knife during the show.

Visitors to the Newlyn Art Gallery in Newlyn, Cornwall - funded by taxpayers and the lottery - will be allowed to watch her for ten minutes. The gallery has defended its decision to stage the one-off show, but animal rights campaigners have labelled the performance 'sick'.

Anita Singh, spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said: 'This seems to be a desperate cry for help that merits visits from mental health counsellors, not voyeurs.

'As Miss O'Reilly seems to depend on the shock value of using a murdered pig as a prop, perhaps lacking the talent to make it as a proper artist, may we suggest she take up a day job instead to pay the bills. This is not entertainment - this is sick.'

Under the title 'Inthewrongplaceness', the piece is billed as a 'slow crushing dance with a pig for one at a time'.

The performance will see the artist sit in a disused social club designed to look like a bedroom, surrounded by props including flowers and a plastic swan.

She will spend four hours with the dead pig - bought from a local abattoir - in her arms.

She wrote on the gallery's website: 'When I cut pig I have an urge to delve both hands into the belly, to meld into her warm flesh, my blood and her blood.'

Miss O'Reilly's fee for the performance is thought to have been drawn from £30,000 given to the gallery by the Arts Council England.

Gallery director James Green defended the show as a 'very personal piece of work'. He said: 'This is a challenging piece of work and exactly the kind of show we should be delivering.

Miss O'Reilly said yesterday: 'I am well aware of the controversy this performance will create.'