The Lives of Animals

ENNLFR

“It is true that animals are usually not able to participate in their liberation, but they behave differently when they are liberated and have better living conditions.”
— Speaking Beyond Language: Lin May Saeed Interviewed

Lin May Saeed

Back
08 June - 22 September 2024
,

Lin May Saeed (1973–2023) was a German-Iraqi artist and animal activist who dedicated her entire artistic prac­tice to animal studies. Her drawings, sculptures, installations and reliefs draw on folklore, animalism, mythology and modern history. Lin May Saeed speaks of with kindness, empathy and humour, addressing the themes of domestication and liberation, climate change, mass extinction, habitat changes and coexist­ence with humans while simultaneously calling for a non-human rebellion. In her works, Saeed develops a new iconogra­phy of solidarity between species. 

Lin May Saeed is a key artist for this exhibition, and her works are a refer­ence point for the development of other important themes presented in The Lives of Animals. The work Arrival of the Animals (dedicated to E. Canetti) (2008), which is the leitmotif of the exhibition, depicts a group of people con­fronting animals in a somewhat satirical and dramatic way. The work refers to texts by Elias Canetti analysing power structures between species. 

Slow Bird, 2011
© image: M HKA

Exhibited works: 

Khulood, 2014
Collection of Gaby & Wilhelm Schürmann, Herzogenrath
Arrival of the Animals (dedicated to E. Canetti), 2008
ASYL – The Liberation of Animals from Their Cages VI, 2008 – 2009
Blue Nile Relief II, 2011
Enkidu, 2007
Landscape with Animals, 2007
The Liberation of Animals from Their Cages III, 2008
The Liberation of Animals from Their Cages XVIII / Olifant Gate, 2016
The Liberation of Animals from Their Cages, 2008
Toreador Gate, 2019
Courtesy The Estate of Lin May Saeed and Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt/Main
Picnic Relief, 2021
Slow Bird, 2011
St. Jerome and the Lion, 2016
The Liberation of Animals from Their Cages XVI, 2014
Theodor-Heuss-Platz Relief, 2023
Verge Hawr Al-Hammar III, 2013
Courtesy The Estate of Lin May Saeed; Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt/Main and Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles

Back