Von Tieren und anderen Menschen

Berlin is also a city of animals! The Berlin Zoo and the Tierpark attract millions of visitors every year, while the Natural History Museum features dinosaurs and Knut the polar bear. In addition, the world of domestic animals in Berlin is extremely diverse in both number and species, but less welcome “synanthropic species” are also widespread—the capital’s rat population is estimated at two to six million!

Human perspectives on animals are diverse, often contradictory, and constantly changing. We hunt, slaughter, and eat animals; we care for, pet, and love them; we displace and protect them; we capture them and we poach them. They can disgust and shock us, or we may find them funny and cute; they are subjugated to us, serve us, and are useful to us, or they may even become our loyal friends and lifelong partners.

Even when animals are not physically close to us, our interest in them remains strong. Documentary films about animals offer us insights into inaccessible habitats and worlds of experience; they entertain and relax us. Popular science literature about animals is a constant presence on bestseller lists, and concerns about animal welfare and the preservation of biodiversity weigh heavily on many people’s minds. And even if, in our daily lives, we consume products from industrial factory farming or the excessive overfishing of our oceans, the fate of individual animals can still stir our compassion —whether it’s a family of ducks that has strayed onto a highway or a humpback whale stranded in the Baltic Sea, which, as the tragic media star “Timmy,” almost overshadowed world events in the news for weeks.

In art, animals have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration since the very earliest days of cave paintings. The sheer number and variety of animal depictions are immeasurable. The exhibition in Britz explores the dynamic and ever-changing relationship between animals and humans, presenting a broad and species-rich selection of depictions—ranging from the fabulously poetic to the meticulously analytical—spanning four centuries in an engaging display. It examines how humans have depicted, interpreted, understood, or misunderstood animals. The range extends from scientific illustrations and images from Brehm’s *Life of Animals* to Japanese woodblock prints, as well as amusing drawings by Marunde and Sowa and works by contemporary artists who explore the theme—both concretely and abstractly—through paintings, sculptures, and installations. As diverse as the intentions and artistic approaches may be, all these works together convey a magnificently dazzling kaleidoscope of animals and other people.

We would like to thank the participating contemporary artists and the lenders, especially Bildlabor Kleistpark, the art dealer Ralph R. Haugwitz, Berlin, and Brehms Welt, as well as unnamed private individuals and the support association “Freunde und Förderer Schloss Britz e.V.”

Curated by Dr. Martin Steffens and Rebekka Liebmann