According to US Airlines traveling animals must be kept in a confinement throughout the entire journey, rest either on the owners’ lap or be stowed under the seat. The price for an emotional support animal ticket ranges from $95 to $125 one way. More surprisingly is the fact, which animals are identified as a support animal: it can be a cat, dog, miniature horse and in one case a small pig.
More recently, museums and art galleries are faced with similar issues when visitors bring their support animals and members of staff are unsure how to respond. In the case of guide dogs, it is obvious and there are guidelines but often guests arrive with rats, mice, snakes, tarantulas and other exotic creatures. My fantasy goes haywire, imagining all kind of encounters the animal might have with the artworks or antiquities. And what about members of staff and other visitors who may respond in a panic when they see a rat or a crawling tarantula? Museums may soon be required to provide dog and cat loos. Where is this all going to end? Is it fair to animals to be taken onto an aircraft, the underground or into an art gallery, these environments are not their natural habitats.
Over the past decades the artworld has been engaged with artists who worked with living animals. In 1969 Jannis Kounellis, Horses, where he tied twelve horses to the walls of a gallery in Rome, transforming the space into something to be confronted and encountered! The viewer’s surroundings had been drastically transformed and so had the horses’ too. Joseph Beuys, I like America and America likes me. During his 1974 performance Beuys spent a three days with coyote in a New York gallery. The French artist, Céleste Boursier Mougenot, presented in 2010 his work from Here to Ear, at the Barbican in London, featuring fourty zebra finches and electric guitars. As they flew from one instrument to another they stroke and plucked chords which drew together a concert of punk and heavy metal along with their own song. In these instances, the animals are well cared for by special trained keepers. Today these kind of performances would capture the attention of animal right protectors and PETA: People for the Ethical Treatments of Animals, who most certainly have their views concerning these issues.
Image: Visiting the London Art Fair with my emotional support crow earlier this year.
Courtesy and ©Janet Rady Fine Art and Renée Pfister Art & Gallery Consultancy, 2023.
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