Dead Animals or The Curious Occurrence of Taxidermy in Contemporary Art
Exhibition Catalogue
The catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the same name is excitingly rich in both content and visual imagery. It features essays by the curator Jo-Ann Conklin [Dead Animals] as well as Steve Baker [Beyond Botched Taxidermy], Rachel Poliquin [Taxidermy and the Poetics of Strangeness], Mark Dion & Robert Marbury [Some Notes Towards a Manifesto for Artists Working with and About Taxidermy Animals, 2016].
In Beyond Botched Taxidermy Steve Baker revisits and critically evaluates his term ‘botched taxidermy’ noting how the changes in recent years created by the growth of animal studies, amongst other critical engagements, have revealed the “breadth of artists’ engagement with questions of animal life”. Baker states “what’s happening now is something quieter and more complex” which creates a “critical framework for thinking about animals”.
The exhibition was held at the David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, January 23, 2016 – March 27, 2016 featuring taxidermy in the work of 18 artists: Maurizio Cattelan, Kate Clark, Mark Dion, Nicholas Galanin, Thomas Grünfeld, Damien Hirst, Karen Knorr, Annette Messager, Polly Morgan, Deborah Sengl, Angela Singer, Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir/Mark Wilson, Richard Barnes, Jules Greenberg, Sarah Cusimano Miles, Richard Ross, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.