Deconstructing the Animal in Search of the Real - Anthrozoos-2013

2010

This essay will ethnographically explore some social, material and visual dimensions of contemporary art praxis, focusing on its conjuncture with ‘the animal question’ and other animals’ bodies1. It will demonstrate that an anthropological approach to art, as defined by Gell (1998; 1999), is invaluable in beginning to trace some of the multilayered ethnographic pathways that constitute the ‘art-objects’ and/or ‘art-events’ that are at the centre of today’s complex ‘art-world’ scenes. In exploring these issues it will address such questions as: what is the place of nonhuman animals in contemporary art? Does the presence of the animal body in contemporary art imply the address of ‘the animal question’? Is it socially acceptable to inflict pain or cause the death of other animals ‘for the sake of art’? Throughout this paper it will be demonstrated and argued that using Gell’s idea of the art “nexus” (1998: 12 et al.) for ethnographic research is invaluable to engage critically with the at times obscure, murky and dazzling worlds of the ‘postmodern’ art scenes. It will also, towards the end of the text, and perhaps as a playful alternative to Vogel’s net and Gell’s traps as artworks, present the work of Angela Singer as what art might look like if it were produced by (some) anthropologists.

The concept for the project and exhibition series »we , animals« is based on a view of human-animal relations as defined in Human-Animal Studies. They are viewed as having developed over the course of history, being in a constant state of flux and which, in our dealings with animals, are continuously being produced and reproduced anew. Addressing the agency of animals in societal spaces leads to one of the core issues: how can we perceive animals as independent actors within historical, social and cultural processes? For the five projects I invited 10 artists whose works reflect upon our language and actions concerning animals on a daily basis. They throw light on specific interactions, human misconceptions and contradictions in relation to animals. They challenge the rigid categories that are applied to animals as working animals, livestock, mythical figures, pets or beasts. Their scientific references and performative or activist approaches helped shape the curatorial concept. This catalogue published by the curator Anne Hoelck documents the selected artistic contributions to the current debate on human-animal relations. It is enriched by the essays »Deconstructing the Anthropological Machine« by Jessica Ullrich and »Animal Biographies« by Stephan Zandt.

« Io son come un serpente, ogni anno cambio pelle. La mia pelle non la butto ma con essa faccio tutto ».

The question of whether it is ethical to use representations of dead animals in art became especially relevant today with a proliferation of the interest in rendering animal and animality in contemporary art. One of the unifying aspects in researching this phenomenon concerns not only ethics as such but is straightforwardly linked to its critical function. Artistic practice involving animals is explicitly political today, it is directed towards the exploitation and destruction of animals, yet its critical dimension is paradoxically at odds with ethical norms of society. With this paper I want to focus on the dialectics of politics and ethics in reflecting animal in contemporary art and explore the question of criticality of such type of artworks. To do so, I will focus on rather controversial example -manipulation with dead animals, which, in my opinion, puts into question ethical and aesthetic norms of contemporary society. My argument will be built upon the examples I found not only interesting but also the most illustrative for the problem I am analysing, yet it is important to add that the interpretation of the artworks given in this essay is rather subjective and does not pretend to claim classic explanations existing in art.

The confrontation and interaction with non human alterity has shaped our way of thinking, our aesthetics and technologies, as well as our language which is full of metaphors and expressions based on zoological instances. The opposition of culture and nature - deeply rooted in anthropocentric and humanistic visions of the world - doesn't seem to make much sense any longer. The broad proliferation of theriomorphism in art, but also in many other manifestations of contemporary culture, could be the signal of an existential void that affects the urbanized and globalized western society. Analyzing the animal presence in contemporary art could be useful to understand how both the post-humanistic and non-anthropocentrism thoughts are growing and changing our look on the world.

… : Kultur~ Natur: Konferens för kulturstudier i …, 2009

Recent developments in cultural studies and other areas of the humanities and so-cial sciences point to an 'animal turn', an increasing interest in posthumanist, non-anthropocentric approaches toward exploring the multiple roles and meanings of animals in human lifeworlds. This ...

The confrontation and interaction with non human alterity has shaped our way of thinking, our aesthetics and technologies, as well as our language which is full of metaphors and expressions based on zoological instances. The opposition of culture and nature - deeply rooted in anthropocentric and humanistic visions of the world - doesn't seem to make much sense any longer. The broad proliferation of theriomorphism in art, but also in many other manifestations of contemporary culture, could be the signal of an existential void that affects the urbanized and globalized western society. Analyzing the animal presence in contemporary art could be useful to understand how both the posthumanistic and non-anthropocentrism thoughts are growing and changing our look on the world.

2016

[link to the whole dissertation: https://repositorio.uam.es/handle/10486/672482 (in Spanish)] In my PhD thesis project I have addressed the topic of the presence and agency of non human animals in contemporary art, as well as the evolution and changes in the attitudes of artists towards those animals, to conclude with a bold and innovative exploration of the possibility that animals do make art, inside and outside the gallery space. The main chronological framework of my dissertation embraces approximately five decades, from the mid-sixties to the present day. Regarding my theoretical backing, my foundings certainly lie in the field of art history. Thanks to my background in biology, I have also turned to some scientific disciplines (ethology, primatology, neuroscience...) in order to enrich my proposal and to become closer to the perception and points of view of other animals. Furthermore, the transversal academic conglomerate that constitutes animal studies has helped me to navigate through the different fields and approaches, maintaining non human animals and their perspectives in the spotlight, and simultaneously enlightening and challenging dichotomies such as animal/human, biology/culture, natural/artificial...

2017

This is a study about the multiple modes of engagement between art and academia (science). The study does not focus on the widely discussed artistic research, but wishes to give more focus on how scientific research can benefit from engaging with the art discourse. The study established a frame of reference comprising four current modes of engagements between art and science: science as “tools”, as “subjects”, as “reasons for and ground of collaborations”, and science as “art”. This research emphasises the part, “science as art”, and suggests that some scientific works have artistic qualities, and have the potential to be received and debated in the art discourse. Through engaging with art, scientific research has the possibility to be scrutinised by a set of heterogeneous thinkers, providing fresh and perhaps critical reflections. Two of the author’s latest work on human-animal relationships, White Bear (2014-) and MELK (2016-) are presented, analysed and positioned within the scope of the established frame of reference. The author believes that art has the potential to introduce a fresh perspective on the subject matter, and spark off longterm debates without being didactic. A more detailed argument is given on how Jacque Rancière’s notion of Dissensus is inline with the works’ strategies and process. The study also presents a practical working method for projects that involve multidisciplinary collaborations, with the help of social media groups.

This was a big international exhibition addressing the question of how contemporary artists respond to the often conflicted ideas we have about nonhuman animals and the contradictory tensions in the field of human-animal relations