Speculative Taxidermy

240THIS IS NOT A HORSE

mirror lining its upper part is only a thin surface of reflective veneer, and
is revealed as such by an underlying plywood structure. Once again, sig-
nification can be derived from a focus on the juxtaposition of the ma-
terialities in this piece. The reflectiveness of the mirror surface shows the
underbelly of the horse mannequin. In so doing, it reveals the absence of
sexual organs, a reference to castration, and another reassessment of the
passivating operations involved in the prosthetic relationships between
horses and humans. Simultaneously, it alludes to the figure of speech in
which to “show the underbelly” means to display vulnerability. The mir-
ror points at the underlining conception of It’s Hard to Make a Stand as
the object-assemblage able to reveal the hidden contradictions, fragmen-
tations, and parallelisms involved in human/animal relations.
Beyond the artist’s claim that it literally “was hard to build the stand,”
the recovery of human/animal dispositifs inscribed in the assemblage
makes it impossible to ignore the signification of the idiom “to make a
stand” beyond its literalist dimension. “To make a stand” is a determined
effort to defend something or to stop something from happening. In its
double entendre, “making a stand” therefore proposes two valid commen-
taries about such power relations. The first is a resignation to the impos-
sibility of making a determined effort to defend, supposedly on ethical
grounds, the value of the biopower relations at play in the human/animal
relations inscribed. The second is a sense of resignation to the naturaliza-
tion that such power relations have transhistorically acquired, thereby
acknowledging that “it’s hard to make a stand” against the pervasive pow-
ers that perpetrate the human/animal relations on display in this work. In
this sense, It’s Hard to Make a Stand is indeed like a defaced memorial,
a sign that the values it represents are no longer supported and shared by
parts of society. As an anthropogenic element of resistance, the piece
equates to a refusal to comply with the power/knowledge relationships
defining the transhistorical human/animal relations that it reveals.^62

THE REENCHANTMENT OF ART

Perhaps with reason, it might seem that speculative taxidermy is charac-
terized by a certain level of cynicism—the anthropogenic darkness herein