Over the last 50 years, the representation of animals in contemporary art has shifted from traditional schemata into new modes. From Kounellis' Untitled (12 Horses) in 1969 and Beuys' coyote action I Like America and America Likes Me in 1974 to Damien Hirst's preserved animal vitrines and Eduardo Kac's transgenic green-fluorescent rabbit Alba, non-human animals have come to bear new meanings in Western culture.
These strands in fine art run parallel to new thinking about animals. From the Anglosphere, Peter Singer's utilitarianism and Donna Haraway's post-humanism are alive in politics in the shape of animal rights and ethical issues around genetic engineering. From Continental thinking, Jacques Derrida's swansong ruminations on the abyss between animals and humans and Deleuze and Guattari's ‘becoming-animal’ thrive in universities and art schools worldwide. As the global ecology movement has grown, so has awareness of anthropocentrism (a development sometimes decried now as anti-humanist).
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The Animal Gaze is an event developed from practice-led university research in fine art. The intention is academic: to exhibit and examine new ways in which animals appear in contemporary art and the contingent ethics and aesthetics to which such practice may be subject.
Mary Britton Clouse: Nemo - Portrait/Self-portrait
