Leichte Sprache
exhibition

Animals and Us

27. March 2025 - 27. July 2025

Humans’ relationship to the environment is one of the most important social issues of our
time. The different roles of human beings – as part of nature and rulers of the world – are
visible in the relationship between humans and animals. In the present age, known as the Anthropocene and sometimes also as the Capitalocene, this relationship seems to have become increasingly contradictory and emotional, with exploited farm animals on the one hand, and highly bred and pampered pets on the other. In animals we seek the natural, the creaturely in ourselves; images of animals become metaphors or symbols of human emotions.

For the traveling exhibition Animals and Us, museums from different disciplines have collaborated under the direction of Peter Kuntner of fischteich: in addition to the open art museum, they include the Museum zu Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen and the Naturama Aargau. This not only illuminates the topic itself in an exciting, multi-perspectival way, but also brings together museums that otherwise remain separate.

The exhibition at the open art museum focuses on artistic reflections on the relationship between humans and animals. Following an interdisciplinary approach, it brings together works of Outsider Art and contemporary art. In the artistic reflection on the relationship between humans and animals, the exhibition opens up entrenched dualistic patterns of thought for an open, cross-cultural dialogue.

Anonym. Charlotte Bachmann. Berta Balzli. Paul Barton. Margrit Bauer. Ulrich Bleiker. Reni Blum. Anny Boxler. Elisabeth (“Die Vorstadtgräfin”). Marianne Engel. Fabienne Gantenbein. Giuseppe Giavarini. Claudine Goux. Gustav Adolf Hummel. Hans Krüsi. Peter Kuntner. Margarete. Vera Marke. Linda Naeff. Michel Nedjar. Nanny Noli. Antonio Odesti. Josef Oertle. Gilbert Pache. Stefan Rohner. Paula Roth. Jakob Rümbeli. Philippe Saxer. Marlis Spielmann. Erich Staub. Niklaus Wenk. Emma Widmer-Gass. Pius Zimmermann. Konrad Zülle. ZHdK, MA Transdisziplinarität, ‘Ich, du, Tier’, 2023.