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UnNatural History: The Herbert’s new exhibition uncovers how artists ‘can encourage our ability to act on climate crisis’

Raqs Media Collective, However Incongruous, Fibreglass sculpture, 10.5 x 5.25 x 3 ft, 2011

 

A LIFE-SIZE sculpture of a rhino and a time-travelling eco lab form part of UnNatural History – one of the first major exhibitions launching Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 this May.

Curated by art and environment organisation Invisible Dust, this major new exhibition will run from May 28 until August 22 in newly refurbished contemporary galleries at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry.

Art works include Raqs Media Collective’s life-sized sculpture However Incongruous as a contemporary reinterpretation of Albrecht Dürer’s 1515 Rhinoceros.

Dürer’s original painting was speculative as, having never seen a rhino in real life and misperceiving descriptions of the animal, he depicts it with a horn on its back.

In Raqs Media Collective’s work, the rhinoceros is reimagined as an out-of-place carousel animal.