Artist and Bird Rehabilitator Protests “Animal Cruelty” @ Hyperallergic
The ethical conundrum of using live animals as art materials is not a new issue in the art world — a place where aesthetics are considered a cause worth dying (and killing) for. But this week, fine art photographer and trained bird and wildlife rehabber Sheida Soleimani voiced objections to an opening event at Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles, which incorporated the release of live birds.
The ethical conundrum of using live animals as art materials is not a new issue in the art world — a place where aesthetics are considered a cause worth dying (and killing) for. But this week, fine art photographer and trained bird and wildlife rehabber Sheida Soleimani voiced objections to an opening event at Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles, which incorporated the release of live birds.
The occasion, in this case, was the opening night event of The Emerald Tablet, a solo exhibition by Ariana Papademetropolous, on September 4. The show purports to “celebrate the intersection of the occult and the magic of set design, blurring the world of cinema and the great beyond.” Thirty-three domestic doves are likely to soon encounter the great beyond, says Soleimani, after being shoved inside a fiberglass spaceship sculpture mounted to the top of a car in the LA heat, before being released into the wild where they are ill-suited to survive, the artist adds — all under the auspices of a performance art piece by the Unarius Educational Foundation.
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Image: Sheida Soleimani, “Coping Mechanisms 4” (2021), from a series of images shot in the course of her practice as a wildlife and bird rehabber. Soleimani is protesting the release of domestic doves into the wild during a show opening at Dietch Los Angeles. (courtesy of Sheida Soleimani and Denny Dimin Gallery)