Animals

(Un Animal, des animaux). For over thirty years the Zoology Hall of the Museum of Natural History in Paris was closed to the public while thousands of stuffed animals-mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, crustaceans-were abandoned inside. Animals wittily documents the Hall's renovation, recording the three years of intense, detail-driven preparation to bring the various inhabitants back to “life.” Philibert subtly delights in the dedication of the zoologists as they go about their tasks-they are as passionate about what they do as any artist. Meanwhile, the animals take on an odd symbolic life of their own, their vacant faces providing a wry commentary on the various processes that revolve around them. An incisive testimony to the human desire, or compulsion, to preserve and document.

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