“All animals are equal, but…” Artistic positions around the complex relationship between humans and (other) animals feature in an intriguing exhibition at the Heidi Horten Collection.
- Around 90 works from the 20th and 21st centuries
- Numerous famous names, like Lichtenstein & Klimt
- Themes include exploitation, autonomy, symbolism, and more
- Runs Mar 27 – Aug 30, 2026
- Book tickets* to the collection
- See also:
Of Animals and Humans
(Roy Lichtenstein, Forest Scene, 1980, Heidi Horten Collection; © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein / Bildrecht Wien, 2026)
Well over 50,000 years ago, someone in Sulawesi painted three figures and a pig on a wall in a Karampuang cave. Visual representations of the relationship between humans and animals clearly have a long tradition.
Fast forward a fair few millennia and we’re still at it, as the Animalia exhibition in the Heidi Horten Collection reveals.
The media, motifs and messages have changed since some precursor of the modern human got tired of digging for roots and invented figurative art instead: around 90 modern and contemporary art works in Animalia express, interpret and play on that human-animal relationship in a variety of ways.
Having said that, a critical examination of the artificial distinction between the two entities perhaps lies at the exhibition’s core. After all, we’re all animals in the taxonomic sense.
(Exhibition view; photo: Simon Veres © Heidi Horten Collection)
That human-animal distinction is a self-imposed cultural one, which has implications for the relationship that works in the exhibition also touch on.
These aspects and more appear across six chapters that tackle such themes as domestication, exploitation, animals as representations of change and subversion, the human-animal “hierarchy”, the animal as evil beast, and animal agency.
The paintings, film, sculptures, installations etc. by just under 50 artists are as diverse as the themes, so you can treat the exhibition as sitting within an overarching context or simply as a menu of art you can pick and choose from according to your tastes.
That diversity ranges from the raw power of such works as Tigres et Vautours (pictured below) through the humourous (always a treat to see Gelatin’s take on a subject) to the innovative (like Matthias Garff’s displays of insects made from found objects. Ring pulls make great mandibles.)
(Yan Pei-Ming, Tigres et Vautours, 2015; Heidi Horten Collection © Bildrecht, Wien, 2026)
Many powerhouses of art history feature, too, such as Picasso, Chagall (a goat coming as no surprise there), Kubin, Klimt, Lassnig, Lichtenstein, Baselitz, and Warhol.
I have a number of personal highlights but especially from the small “Animals as mirror of the self” section, notably Lassnig’s 1975 Schmetterling (Butterfly), the 1971 bird foot table by Meret Oppenheim, and Lena Henke’s 2020 Niche.
But I’ll reserve special personal praise for two works:
- The combination of humour and depth in Not Vital’s Fuck You set of antlers: beautifully lit and positioned, too
- As a cat lover, nothing beats the Hermitage Cats portrait installation by Anna Jermolaewa. One of those cats has such beauty, it may in fact be a manifestation of Aphrodite. (Yeah, I like cats)
Dates, tickets & tips
Enjoy the human-animal relationship in art from March 27th to August 30th, 2026. An entrance ticket for or from the Heidi Horten Collection includes the special exhibition.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
Art, science and the natural world meet elsewhere in Vienna across those exhibition dates. The Naturhistorisches Museum‘s 150th anniversary exhibition looks at the origins of its natural history collection, but also examines items within that collection from different, often self-critical, perspectives.
How to get there
My main article on the Heidi Horten Collection has travel tips, but the location’s notably close to central Karlsplatz subway station on the U1, U2 and U4 lines, as well as the Burgring tram stop on the 1, 2, D and 71 lines.
Address: Hanuschgasse 3, 1010 Vienna