Rirkrit Tiravanija | e-flux
Rirkrit Tiravanija, untitled 2020 (we are not your pet), 2023, Diptych: (Left) Solar dust screenprint and archival digital pigment print on paper, (right) thermocromic screenprint and archival digital print on paper, each 70.8 x 58.5 cm x 4 cm.
By Christine Han
The formally diverse series of works that anchor Rirkrit Tiravanija’s new solo exhibition each highlight the accelerating inequity among living beings and propose tentative frameworks for their reconciliation. On entering the exhibition, the visitor is greeted by framed prints of five Old Master paintings which have been appropriated and adapted by Tiravanija. In twinned reproductions of Pietro Longhi’s Il rinoceronte (1751), for instance, Tiravanija has altered or partly obscured the original image of Clara—the first rhinoceros brought into Europe from Asia—as depicted in a Venetian carnival. The implication of the title (untitled, 2020 [we are not your pet], 2023) seems clear: to disrupt the idea that nature as distinct from humanity is something to be tamed and subordinated.