“The curators of the exhibition hope that viewers will consider why the artists produced it and what they may be saying about the social conditions of globalization and the complex nature of the world we share,” the Guggenheim said in a statement posted on its website on Thursday.

The three-month show, “Art and China After 1989,” opens Oct. 6 in the New York City museum and will feature about 150 pieces of experimental art. Many works are deliberately shocking, including the signature piece, “Theater of the World,” which features live insects and reptiles scurrying under an overhead lamp.

But so far the backlash has centered on the video by the artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, the husband-and-wife creators of often stirring and unsettling work. (In 2000, their transfused blood was injected into the corpse of conjoined babies in the performance piece “Body Link.”)

“Shame on the ‘artists’ for using animals in their pitch for sensationalism,” one reader wrote in the comments of a New York Times article this week about the Guggenheim show. “Shame on you Guggenheim for prompting heinous animal cruelty under the guise of ‘art.’”

In an interview last year, Mr. Sun and Ms. Peng defended “Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other” and dismissed claims of animal cruelty.