Caravan (Owl Painting), 84 in. x 84 in., Oil on canvas. 2012. National Museum of Wildlife Art Permanent Collection (Jackson, WY). Purchased with funds generously donated by Adrienne & John Mars. Artwork & images ©Peter D. Gerakaris. All Rights Reserved. TRAVELING EXHIBIT: UN/NATURAL SELECTIONS: WILDLIFE IN CONTEMPORARY ART
Installation Views & Museum Preview at The Huson River Museum (Yonkers, NY)
OCTOBER 13, 2023 â JANUARY 14, 2024
From Julie Buffalohead and Kiki Smith to Walton Ford and James Prosek, the artists in this exhibition represent another stage in the evolution of animal art. Wild animals have been present in art since the first artists painted images on cave walls or carved figures in stone tens of thousands of years ago. Todayâs artists continue to use animal imagery as away to address humanityâs interconnectedness with the natural world. Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art, organized by the National Museum of Wildlife Art, explores the meaning of these creative expressions within the context of contemporary art. Featuring a diverse group of more than forty artworks from the National Museum of Wildlife Artâs permanent collection, the exhibition offers a wide range of styles in a variety of media, divided into four thematic sections: Tradition, Politics,Science, and Aesthetics. These realms act as overlapping chapters, investigating the ways we use animal imagery to tackle human concerns and responsibilities. The title of this exhibition is a play on Charles Darwinâs concept of natural selection from his pivotal writing, On the Origin of Species (1859). Darwinâs ideas contributed much to the development of wildlife art in the late nineteenth century, as artists began to represent animals in natural habitats, enacting natural behaviors. From Julie Buffalohead and Kiki Smith to Walton Ford and James Prosek, the artists in this exhibition represent another stage in the evolution of animal art: choosing to represent animals in alternative, unnatural spacesâspaces more often directly linked to civilization than to wilderness. LEARN MORE
FEATURED ARTISTS Troy Abbott âą Timothy Berg and Rebekah Myers âą George Boorujy âą John Buck âą Julie Buffalohead âą Mark Dion âą Mark Eberhard âą Dave Eggers âą Juan Fontanive âą Walton Ford âą Scott Fraser âą Peter Gerakaris âą Gillie and Marc âą Penelope Gottlieb âą Starr Hardridge âą Nicola Hicks âą Dennis Hlynsky âą Barbara Kassel âą Zoe Keller âą Wendy Klemperer âą Kollabs, Anke Schofield and Luis Garcia-Nerey âą Emily Lamb âą Ruth Marshall âą Wendy Maruyama âą Robert McCauley âą William Morris âą Marc Petrovic âą James Prosek âą Shelley Reed âą Preston Singletary âą Allison Leigh Smith âą Kiki Smith âą Shawn Smith âą Lauren Strohacker and Kendra Sollars âą William Sweetlove âą Leslie Thornton âą Paul Villinski âą JenMarie Zeleznak
Un/Natural Selections: Wildlife in Contemporary Art is organized by the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Generous support provided by Art Bridges.