Jane C. Desmond
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226144054
- eISBN:
- 9780226375519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226375519.003.0008
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
Chapter 8 investigates the phenomenon of “art by animals” as a counterpoint to the first part of the book, which focuses on the display of dead bodies and the tensions that emerge in social practices ...
More
Chapter 8 investigates the phenomenon of “art by animals” as a counterpoint to the first part of the book, which focuses on the display of dead bodies and the tensions that emerge in social practices meant to attribute subjectivity to only some of those bodies as a prerequisite for mourning. Rather than focusing on dead bodies as before, Desmond examines the traces left by living animal bodies, activated and captivated in the transnational market for “art” by animals. In particular, she examines items that get designated as “artworks” when they record the physical trace of a specific animal body, such as the imprint of fish scales on paper. Desmond sketches the transnational contours of the market for this type of animal art and the implied continuum that positions the value of artworks along a scale of increasing capacity for “intent” demonstrated by the species producing the works, including seals, birds, and elephants.Less
Chapter 8 investigates the phenomenon of “art by animals” as a counterpoint to the first part of the book, which focuses on the display of dead bodies and the tensions that emerge in social practices meant to attribute subjectivity to only some of those bodies as a prerequisite for mourning. Rather than focusing on dead bodies as before, Desmond examines the traces left by living animal bodies, activated and captivated in the transnational market for “art” by animals. In particular, she examines items that get designated as “artworks” when they record the physical trace of a specific animal body, such as the imprint of fish scales on paper. Desmond sketches the transnational contours of the market for this type of animal art and the implied continuum that positions the value of artworks along a scale of increasing capacity for “intent” demonstrated by the species producing the works, including seals, birds, and elephants.
Jane C. Desmond
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226144054
- eISBN:
- 9780226375519
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226375519.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
In this book, author Jane C. Desmond offers a performative analysis of the social phenomena that construct human-animal relations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Desmond explores the shared ...
More
In this book, author Jane C. Desmond offers a performative analysis of the social phenomena that construct human-animal relations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Desmond explores the shared conditions of embodiment and physical copresence that shape human relationships with animals. She begins by examining human interactions with the bodies of non-individuated animals, including museum exhibitions of dead animals and taxidermy displays. Desmond uses the Body Worlds exhibit of plasticized human corpses as a point of contrast to argue that while human corpses are put on display in a way that emphasizes their universality, exhibits featuring dead animal bodies invite genericization. The following sections of the book deal with known or individuated animals such as pets. Desmond analyzes animal burial and mourning practices, paying special attention to pet obituaries and pet cemeteries, and discusses the underlying implications of cross-species kinship. She compares these grieving practices to humans’ uncompassionate treatment of animal roadkill. In the last part of the book, Desmond explores the marketing of animal intimacy, in particular the marketing of artwork created by animals. She focuses on the body traces left by animal artists as well as the distinction between primates and other animals that make art. Ultimately, Desmond uses these various examples to question the complicated politics of human-animal relations and interactions.Less
In this book, author Jane C. Desmond offers a performative analysis of the social phenomena that construct human-animal relations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Desmond explores the shared conditions of embodiment and physical copresence that shape human relationships with animals. She begins by examining human interactions with the bodies of non-individuated animals, including museum exhibitions of dead animals and taxidermy displays. Desmond uses the Body Worlds exhibit of plasticized human corpses as a point of contrast to argue that while human corpses are put on display in a way that emphasizes their universality, exhibits featuring dead animal bodies invite genericization. The following sections of the book deal with known or individuated animals such as pets. Desmond analyzes animal burial and mourning practices, paying special attention to pet obituaries and pet cemeteries, and discusses the underlying implications of cross-species kinship. She compares these grieving practices to humans’ uncompassionate treatment of animal roadkill. In the last part of the book, Desmond explores the marketing of animal intimacy, in particular the marketing of artwork created by animals. She focuses on the body traces left by animal artists as well as the distinction between primates and other animals that make art. Ultimately, Desmond uses these various examples to question the complicated politics of human-animal relations and interactions.
Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719096280
- eISBN:
- 9781526109866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719096280.003.0006
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn’s essay, ‘Animals, Art and Abjection’, teases out the implications of Kristeva’s contention in Powers of Horrorthat the abject engenders a fragile state within which ...
More
Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn’s essay, ‘Animals, Art and Abjection’, teases out the implications of Kristeva’s contention in Powers of Horrorthat the abject engenders a fragile state within which the human strays on the territory of the animal. For Kristeva, some cultures have branded animals as abject and as ‘representatives of sex and murder’. In such cultures, the animal is figured in negative terms and notions of animalism, of the human as an animal species, are suppressed. Animals therefore figure as impure and are made to form the constitutive outside to the human. Creed and Hoorn, however, argue that contemporary art practices that explore animals and animality do so as a means to challenge the notion that animals form humankind’s abject other. In this context, the artworks do not function to purify the abject but rather embrace what has hitherto been labelled as abject as a means to renegotiate its status from within an anthropocentric society.Less
Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn’s essay, ‘Animals, Art and Abjection’, teases out the implications of Kristeva’s contention in Powers of Horrorthat the abject engenders a fragile state within which the human strays on the territory of the animal. For Kristeva, some cultures have branded animals as abject and as ‘representatives of sex and murder’. In such cultures, the animal is figured in negative terms and notions of animalism, of the human as an animal species, are suppressed. Animals therefore figure as impure and are made to form the constitutive outside to the human. Creed and Hoorn, however, argue that contemporary art practices that explore animals and animality do so as a means to challenge the notion that animals form humankind’s abject other. In this context, the artworks do not function to purify the abject but rather embrace what has hitherto been labelled as abject as a means to renegotiate its status from within an anthropocentric society.
Jane C. Desmond
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226144054
- eISBN:
- 9780226375519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226375519.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
In the book’s introduction, Desmond explains the terminology she will use to describe relations involving humans and animals and provides an overview of the book’s tripartite structure. She discusses ...
More
In the book’s introduction, Desmond explains the terminology she will use to describe relations involving humans and animals and provides an overview of the book’s tripartite structure. She discusses the challenges and particularities of the academic and scientific field of “animal studies”, as well as the functionality of experience and her own anxieties about what “animals” are actually involved in animal studies. Desmond wraps up the introduction with a general statement about the book’s purpose, and her hopes that it will help us understand how so many arenas of everyday life unfold in an embodied concert with animals.Less
In the book’s introduction, Desmond explains the terminology she will use to describe relations involving humans and animals and provides an overview of the book’s tripartite structure. She discusses the challenges and particularities of the academic and scientific field of “animal studies”, as well as the functionality of experience and her own anxieties about what “animals” are actually involved in animal studies. Desmond wraps up the introduction with a general statement about the book’s purpose, and her hopes that it will help us understand how so many arenas of everyday life unfold in an embodied concert with animals.
Jane C. Desmond
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226144054
- eISBN:
- 9780226375519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226375519.003.0009
- Subject:
- Biology, Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
In this chapter on “art” produced by nonhuman primates and its transnational market, Desmond explores the issues of representational art and how that categorization is used to raise the bar in ...
More
In this chapter on “art” produced by nonhuman primates and its transnational market, Desmond explores the issues of representational art and how that categorization is used to raise the bar in humans’ evaluation of nonhuman animals’ intellectual capacities and our resultant moral obligations to them. Desmond retains an emphasis on understanding the creation, reception, and circulation of animal art products within the context of a specifically European-derived notion of art making and its contemporary linkage of notions of individual creativity, subjectivity, and visual skill. She cites the post-World War II rise of abstract art and abstract expressionism as a key prerequisite for the expansion of the animal art market overall. Special attention is paid to works produced by primates involved in human language studies, such as Kanzi and Koko.Less
In this chapter on “art” produced by nonhuman primates and its transnational market, Desmond explores the issues of representational art and how that categorization is used to raise the bar in humans’ evaluation of nonhuman animals’ intellectual capacities and our resultant moral obligations to them. Desmond retains an emphasis on understanding the creation, reception, and circulation of animal art products within the context of a specifically European-derived notion of art making and its contemporary linkage of notions of individual creativity, subjectivity, and visual skill. She cites the post-World War II rise of abstract art and abstract expressionism as a key prerequisite for the expansion of the animal art market overall. Special attention is paid to works produced by primates involved in human language studies, such as Kanzi and Koko.
Jay Mcdaniel
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263196
- eISBN:
- 9780823266531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263196.003.0017
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This epilogue by Jay McDaniel reflects on the animal paintings of Jan Harrison. Harrison's animals are not merely looking at us, McDaniel argues. They are also flowing and causing us to flow. They ...
More
This epilogue by Jay McDaniel reflects on the animal paintings of Jan Harrison. Harrison's animals are not merely looking at us, McDaniel argues. They are also flowing and causing us to flow. They are bearing witness to the withness of the body, and hence inviting a knowing with rather than a knowing about. They are teaching us to fold into their singularity in our difference. They are telling us that their flesh does not simply belong to us, nor does our flesh simply belong to us. They are impelling us to ask, How far does flesh go down? And they are prompting us to answer, Deep enough to show that your bodies are also our bodies and so your futures are also our futures.Less
This epilogue by Jay McDaniel reflects on the animal paintings of Jan Harrison. Harrison's animals are not merely looking at us, McDaniel argues. They are also flowing and causing us to flow. They are bearing witness to the withness of the body, and hence inviting a knowing with rather than a knowing about. They are teaching us to fold into their singularity in our difference. They are telling us that their flesh does not simply belong to us, nor does our flesh simply belong to us. They are impelling us to ask, How far does flesh go down? And they are prompting us to answer, Deep enough to show that your bodies are also our bodies and so your futures are also our futures.
