Camels and kittens, elephants and rats, feathered creatures and cute pets. In recent years, contemporary art has been exploring the way we look at animals, talk about animals, use animals and understand ourselves through encounters with other species.
Animals in Art will show sculptures and installations, video, photography and paintings by a wide array of international artists who explore the way we humans study, categorize, live with and use animals – and how we thus try to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves. We are seduced by the cuteness on the toy shop shelves and the internet, we love our pets and search for their human aspects – or the animal traits in ourselves. Our fables, folk tales and mythologies swarm with animals that we give human language and behaviour. We are fascinated by wild animals, and we hope to catch the scent of their inner lives and beauty when we visit them at the zoo or the museum. And we interfere with the evolution, environment and biodiversity of species – for example when we produce animals industrially and play around with DNA, the building blocks of life.
Find your favourite animal and gain new perspectives on mankind’s loving and cruel relationships with the other living beings on the planet.