Opening Reception: Bestiary

Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 5:00pm
Davison Art Center

FREE!

Opening reception and gallery talk by Kari Weil, University Professor, Environmental Studies, College of the Environment and College of Letters, and Co-Coordinator, Animal Studies, and author of “Thinking Animals: Why Animal Studies Now” (Columbia, 2012).

Bestiary takes its inspiration from medieval compendia of wondrous creatures, both natural and fantastic. This exhibition stages creaturely encounters between gallery visitors and their non-human counterparts. In viewing these works, we might wonder at changing conceptions of bestial subjectivity across different cultural contexts and movements including the Renaissance, Romanticism, Surrealism, and our own contemporary moment. Works in this exhibition include an anonymous fifteenth-century engraving of a lion, a dragon, and a fox quarreling; a monumental lobster by Richard Mueller; and an ethereal anemone by Kiki Smith.

Click here to see photos from this event.

Exhibition on display from Friday, February 8 through Thursday, March 7, 2019.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, Noon to 4pm.

Image: Cornelis de Visscher, aka Cornelis Visscher the Younger (Dutch, ca. 1629–1658). Cat Asleep, 17th century. Etching and engraving. Third state. DAC accession number 1941.D1.69. Gift of George W. Davison (B.A. Wesleyan 1892), 1941. Open Access Image from the Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University (photo: R. Lee).

Listen to a conversation between Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee and Curator of the Davison Art Center Miya Tokumitsu about this exhibition on the Center for the Arts Radio Hour:



Listen to a conversation with Director of the Center for the Arts Sarah Curran and Associate Director for Programming and Performing Arts Fiona Coffey about some of the highlights of the spring 2019 season at Wesleyan on the Center for the Arts Radio Hour: