Speculative Taxidermy

22INTRODUCTION

However, as will be seen in the following chapters, these three ap-
proaches to taxidermy in contemporary art often overlap and intertwine,
sometimes leading to the emergence of works of art that unexpectedly
upturn objectifying tropes or productively incorporate symbolism in
critical ways. But the emergence of taxidermy in contemporary art con-
tributes to the current problematization of materiality, gender, ethics, and
aesthetics emerging in the aftermath of postmodernism, while attempt-
ing to adequately address the ecopolitical crises that characterize the cur-
rent phase of the Anthropocene.

BOTCHED AND SPECULATIVE TAXIDERMY

In 2000, Steve Baker, author of The Postmodern Animal, introduced the
concept of botched taxidermy as part of his broader argument inviting
serious consideration of the presence of animals in contemporary art.^33
The book has undeniably achieved its aim, situating artistic representa-
tion on the map of animal studies. However, it is important to acknowl-
edge that botched taxidermy was intrinsically defined by postmodernist
values and aesthetics that have now given way to new approaches and
concerns. In itself, the term botched taxidermy inscribed the essence of
the postmodern animal aesthetic. Baker acknowledged that the term was
devised as a “clumsy catch-all phrase for a variety of contemporary art
practice that engages with the animal at some level or another. In some
cases, it involves taxidermy itself, but in all cases the animal, dead or
alive, is present in all its awkward, pressing thingness.”^34 Essentially, in
botched taxidermy “things appear to have gone wrong with the animal,”
Baker argued.^35 And it is in this generic notion of wrongness that an im-
portant opportunity to differentiate between the semantic role played by
animal skins and manmade surface has been overlooked.
Deliberately opposed to the sentimentalization of classical and roman-
tic animal representations as heroic, comforting, exotic, or amusing,
botched taxidermy proposed itself as “an awkward thing,” “the product
of postmodern human thought,” a “strange being encountered and expe-
rienced, rather than rendered familiar through interpretation,” essen-
tially a questioning entity.^36 Its main role was that of confronting the