Drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, Animal Crossings includes works that reveal various facets of the human-animal interface. The artists included in the exhibition reflect on ways that humans love, admire, study, hunt, and kill animals for a multitude of different reasons.
As the world grapples with a pandemic resulting from a novel animal-human virus transmission, some people have chosen to cope with coronavirus-induced isolation by escaping virtually—for example, through video games. This exhibition’s title is inspired by a popular new video game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, released by Nintendo in March 2020, that invites players to interact with cute animal characters in a completely imaginary world. The artworks on view remind us that artists have always sought a deeper understanding of human interactions with animals.
