Chicago photographer Colleen Plumb’s new exhibition Animals Are Outside Today, which opened at Jen Bekman Gallery in Soho on Friday, is a series of strange and often slightly hyper-real images of animals – everything from circus elephants to the decaying corpse of a raccoon. As a body of work, Animals Are Outside Today explores the complex and often contradictory relationship between humans and animals: as the artist’s statement says, “We love and admire [animals]; we are entertained and fascinated by them; we take our children to watch and learn about them… At the same time, we eat, wear and cage them with seeming indifference, consuming them, and images of them, in countless ways.” Like all the best art, it’s both moving and thought-provoking. Click through to see a gallery of some of Plumb’s work.
Colleen Plumb, Circus Elephant, 2006
Colleen Plumb, Bird on Stairs, 2004
Colleen Plumb, Mold-A-Rama Dinosaur with Ruth, 2007
Colleen Plumb, Hanging Goose, 2003
Colleen Plumb, Horseback, 1999
Colleen Plumb, Racoon, 2004
Colleen Plumb, Deer Sweatshirt, 2003
Colleen Plumb, Nungesser Elephant, 2010
Colleen Plumb, Albrecht and Corwin, Canyon Deer, 2000
Colleen Plumb, Geese With Lights, 1999