Reveal

HIT – Holon Institute of Technology
Visual Communication Department

In the 1820s, French artist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville created dozens of colorful lithographs depicting human-bodied figures with animal heads placed in mundane situations. Titled "Les Métamorphoses du jour" ("The Daily Metamorphoses"), the series was a precursor to the subversive and radical political caricature genre that emerged in France at that time. Grandville was indeed a pioneer, but his oeuvre existed in a given cultural context. Among others, he drew inspiration from the fables of Jean de La Fontaine, written two centuries earlier, which featured talking animals in their natural habitats.
The frequent role reversals between humans and animals in this installation trick our short memory and cause us to confuse the egg (the human) with the chicken (the animal), or was it the other way around? As animal and human switch their flesh-and-blood masks, we, the spectators, witness a carnival of beastly people that leaves much to think about. The lamb and the wolf are here too, and look, they really are dwelling together. Come join as well! It's an "all included" type of deal.