| Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene Contributor(s): Aloi, Giovanni (Author) |
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ISBN: 0231180713 ISBN-13: 9780231180719 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $31.68 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Art | Criticism & Theory - Nature | Animal Rights - Art | Museum Studies |
| Dewey: 709.05 |
| LCCN: 2017038409 |
| Series: Critical Life Studies |
| Physical Information: 1.4" H x 6.2" W x 9.1" (1.00 lbs) 328 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Taxidermy, once the province of natural history and dedicated to the pursuit of lifelike realism, has recently resurfaced in the world of contemporary art, culture, and interior design. In Speculative Taxidermy, Giovanni Aloi offers a comprehensive mapping of the discourses and practices that have enabled the emergence of taxidermy in contemporary art. Drawing on the speculative turn in philosophy and recovering past alternative histories of art and materiality from a biopolitical perspective, Aloi theorizes speculative taxidermy a powerful interface that unlocks new ethical and political opportunities in human-animal relationships and speaks to how animal representation conveys the urgency of addressing climate change, capitalist exploitation, and mass extinction. A resolutely nonanthropocentric take on the materiality of one of the most controversial mediums in art, this approach relentlessly questions past and present ideas of human separation from the animal kingdom. It situates taxidermy as a powerful interface between humans and animals, rooted in a shared ontological and physical vulnerability. Carefully considering a select number of key examples including the work of Nandipha Mntambo, Maria Papadimitriou, Mark Dion, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Roni Horn, Oleg Kulik, Steve Bishop, Sn bj rnsd ttir/Wilson, and Cole Swanson, Speculative Taxidermy contextualizes the resilient presence of animal skin in the gallery space as a productive opportunity to rethink ethical and political stances in human-animal relationships. |
Contributor Bio(s): Aloi, Giovanni: - Giovanni Aloi (PhD, Visual Culture, Goldsmiths, University of London) is Lecturer in Visual Culture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of Art and Animals (I.B. Tauris, 2011) and Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene (Columbia, 2018) and the founder and editor-in-chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. |