Speculative taxidermy is a resolutely non-anthropocentric take on the materiality of one of the most controversial media in contemporary art. It challenges the postcolonial conception of panoptic power, which characterizes natural history taxidermy and dioramas, to pose pressing questions about human-animal coevolutions. In opposition to naturalistic taxidermy, in which the hand of the craftsman must conceal its work, speculative taxidermy flaunts the manipulated essence of preserved animal skins as an indelible material-trace of shared pasts and problematic presents. In the hands of contemporary artists, this non-realistic manipulation can reveal chains of human-animal vulnerability normally concealed by the naturalization of common practices like domestication.

Dr. Giovanni Aloi is a published author, educator, curator and maker specializing in environmental subjects and the representation of nature in art. Since 2006, Aloi has been the Editor in Chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. He is the author of Art & Animals (2011) and Speculative Taxidermy: Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and Art in the Anthropocene (2018), Why Look at Plants? - The Botanical Emergence in Contemporary Art (2019) and Lucian Freud Herbarium (2019). He is a radio contributor and a regular public speaker at the Art Institute of Chicago and has curated exhibitions including photography, digital, and time-based media. Aloi currently lectures on modern and contemporary art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York.

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