Des bêtes et des hommes
October 13 - November 17, 2007
To try to question the links that exist between us and the animals of our environment, the gallery presents a group exhibition where the same animals (the dog, the squirrel, the rabbit) are represented by different techniques. It becomes interesting to see the links that are created between the different mediums and how spontaneously the viewer confers on these different animals behavioral or morphological properties specific to humans. Our tendency to anthropomorphism does not date from today, just think of the fables of Jean de la Fontaine or the cartoons of Walt Disney. Who will not see in Tomasz Szadkowski’s Dog the suffering of an exhausted tramp dragging himself in an alley or the clownish aspect of the three albino squirrels by Sylvain Bouthillette?
The medium influences to a certain extent our apprehension of the subject represented, in this case, the pets. A photograph of Marisa Portolese’s plush rabbit brings to life the lost innocence; the photographic medium brings us back to a personal experience of the real. In contrast, the touch of Mark Vatnsdal’s rabbit speaks of colors, textures and decomposition, while the sculpture of Michele Peress, a hare made of human hair, imposes our own precariousness.
Dogs, rabbits, squirrels, hens and turtles are therefore the represented animals which are invested with a symbolism, on the one hand playful or bestial according to the grid of the human behaviors that one decides to apply there. This exhibition brings together photographs, paintings, sculpture and engravings that question the links that connect us to these little animals.