Natural History (and other mostly true stories)

A summary of the thesis accompanying the exhibition
Natural History (and other mostly true stories)
Anna Leonowens Gallery #3
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
April 14-19, 2008

Paintings, diagrams, taxidermy and other visual aids play a significant role in how we understand animals and their habitats. In his thesis entitled Natural History (and other mostly true stories), artist Jesse Garbe examines?various systems used for the display of animals and their surrounding ecologies, with an emphasis on dioramas.

Following a historical account of dioramas, he focuses on the Cuthburt Rookery display at the American Museum of Natural History. Garbe first discusses various tensions and contradictions in the use of taxidermy by the museum. By setting sculptures of animals and plants in life-size displays with painted backdrops, he explains how natural history museums and their dioramas play a significant part in defining our belief and value systems towards nature.

In the second part of his thesis, Garbe explores the idea that such representations of nature have real-world consequences. He is therefore interested in the notion of representation itself, whether through cartoons, displays, or other animal images. He argues that representations of nature, in both natural history museums and in art, are culturally mediated and can best be understood through their historical, material and cultural construction. In his most recent paintings, his use of historical painting techniques is intended to emphasize his critiques of Eurocentric, culturally-defined natural history displays.

The thesis ends with some thoughts on aesthetics and ethics in artworks using animals as subject matter. Specifically, Garbe looks at the mission of JAAG (Justice for Animals Arts Guild), an artist group in Minnesota, and compares their position to those taken by Joseph Beuys and Mark Dion, two contemporary artists who use live and dead animals in their work.

Garbe concludes that, in both art and culture, there is a need for new models of animal justice that take into account the singularity and sentience of animals.