Eating Animals
August 17, 2011 - September 25, 2011
From August 17 through September 25, the Ackland Art Museum will engage issues discussed in Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, the Carolina Summer Reading Program’s 2011 selection, with an installation of art on the Museum’s second floor. Works on view will present a range of artists’ perspectives related to Foer’s discussions of the stories, traditions, and cultures that have been built around humans’ consumption of animals. For example, a 17th-century Dutch painting depicts dead animals both as coveted trophies of wealthy hunters and as emblems of life’s transience, while a 1949 photograph by Robert Doisneau of a flayed cow’s head in a butcher shop provokes discussion with its title, L’Innocent. Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art will present a similarly themed installation.
Image: Jan Weenix, Dutch, 1642?–1719: Still Life with Hunting Trophies, 1680s-1690s?; oil on canvas. Ackland Fund, 84.43.1.
