Sheepish: Posthumanism and the ovine in contemporary art

Ovine imagery in contemporary art is represented by works as diverse in media as they are linked in meaning with art historical precedents. Practices embracing taxidermic sheep, documentary film footage, carcassbuilt sculpture, graphic novels, printmaking, drawing and works made through the action of sheep participate in a narrative in confluence with, or contradiction of, the contemporary view of the animal in posthumanist theory. The many contemporary iterations of sheep and lamb imagery are synchronous with the animal turn in art and posthumanist thought yet author a larger anthropomorphism that calls this relationship into question. The representation of ovine tropes is part of a millennia long history of anthropomorphic imagery embedded in our culture, addressing themes of Christology, soteriology, nation, and sacrifice that clearly position these works outside the rubric of animal art. Each of the artists whose practices participate in this discussion—Henry Moore, Damien Hirst, and Andy Goldsworthy—open a point of interrogation in a larger discussion framed by posthumanist theory, offering an enduringly humanist reading that belies contemporary discourse.