Pet Cemetery
April 4 - March 4th, 2022
Opening reception Friday, May 4th, 6-9pm
Co-curated by Jordan Segal & Sammy Bennett
Bob’s Gallery is pleased to announce Pet Cemetery—its inaugural group show which celebrates and mourns our animal loved ones.
Symbiotic care is the crux of animal companionship: for our shelter and food, our pets warm our homes, and connect us to deeper parts of ourselves. Without language, pets help us retrace our steps on the tree of life and let us recommune with the nature and intuition we find ourselves increasingly estranged from. Our pet’s companionship offers a glimpse of harmonious reconciliation with life in all its facets. In this re-communion, we both elevate the animal and humble ourselves in mutual companionship, learning and care. They serve as our animal ambassadors.
A unique quality to our four-legged friends is how their age circles our own. When we attribute their shorter lifespans to cat and dog years, they move through the four stages of infancy, adolescence, adulthood and old age in the span that we may transition between two. Their experience and wisdom accrues faster than our own. In that way pets and owners enjoy a reverse familial relationship. To share a pet’s lifespan is to start as the caretaker parent: educating and protecting, and to eventually become the adult child: caretaking the elder as they prepare to die.
Pets are often our first or more potent experience with grief. Contrary to the uncle or grandparent, we feel a pet’s immediate and gaping absence from our daily life and routine. Pets re-assert themselves as members of the nuclear family during our time together and apart. From flushing or the farm, we learn to cope with Loss and carry on. In this moment of prolonged, sustained grief, we remember our furry friends to honor the rituals of mourning and remembrance.
Writing by Will Kaplan
Artist :
Brittany Hayden, Will Kaplan, Yasmeen Abdallah, Lena Schwartz, Kate Alboreo, Grace Bromley, Natalie Frisinger, Dan DiFerdinando
Nic Jerabek, Isis Davis-Marks, Alysen Hester, Jordan Segal, Sammy Bennett