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Stuffed Animals Exhibition Passes As Art

"Artists must continue the conquest of new territory and new taboos" - Norman Rosenthal, Director of the Royal Academy of Arts, London

I will not pretend to fully understand contemporary art. I'm more of a classical art admirer, maybe because it comes with its own instructions book and it's easier to understand and delineate. Contemporary art can be almost everything as long as it stirs feelings in the viewer and its purpose, far from merely decorative, is sometimes simply to beautify our surroundings with intrigue.

The Museum of Everything - Walter Potter's Kittens Tea Party

And talking about everything... The Museum of Everything from London, yes, yes, that really is the name of this art gallery, has an intriguing exhibition right now. The eccentric works of the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter, in which stuffed animals mimic human life, have been gathered from around the world for a one-off exhibition. The bizarre 10,000 items Walter Potter's Museum of Curiosities was broken up and sold in 2003 for more than £500,000. Walter Potter was a self-taught artist and craftman who “happened to work in the medium of dead woodland animals”.

I remember when I first visited one of my distant uncles and his house was heavily decorated with stuffed squirrels, foxes, deers and bulls heads. That was one scary experience! His house could have made it for the perfect Halloween party environment. I love animals and those glassy lifeless eyes that were following me everywhere made me sad.

The Museum of Everything - Walter Potter's Gambling Squirrels

Potter's exhibition is open until December 24 and I can't help seeing it as a reminder of the power we have and the misuse we make of it. Yesterday tears came to my eyes as I watched the semi-sleeping, way to quiet kittens at the International Cat Exhibition here in Valencia, so you can imagine my reaction at the Kittens Tea Party "work of art". No, animals should be left to live and die up to their nature, not to be slaves of our vanity. For Gods sake, those were little kittens. It's like an alien race would come and take human children to stuff for an exhibition. How would we feel about it then? Superiority is in the eye of the beholder. But if you have a stomach for it, go see this exhibition. It might be your only chance!

Photos: Telegraph.co.uk

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