Home & Beast

I just spent the weekend in the Washington, D.C. area. I went to Baltimore, whre I was surprised to see an exhibition focused on animals at the American Visionary Art Museum, an “outsider art” museum that I hadn’t been to since 1996.

“Home & Beast” brought together a very loose collection of animal themes: animals in mythology, animals in every day life, sculptures of animals with no intended meaning to them, etc. What was most interesting were the animal causes and facts presented in the text panels. They didn’t have much to do with the artwork, but I was pleased to see such animal-friendly information presented where one wouldn’t really expect it. There was a text panel on The Top 10 Things Meat-Eaters Should Know on the impact of meat-eating on the environment, health, and animals; research on animal intelligence and pleasure; the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to violent behavior towards humans, and so on.

I suspect there was a vegan animal rights activist behind the show.

Photo: A beast in his home, Oliver, my host for the weekend