With the exhibition Animalia. On Animals and Humans, the Heidi Horten Collection explores the complex relationship between humans and animals. The term Animalia, borrowed from biology, serves as the guiding principle for a critical examination of how humans treat animals, reflected in over 100 works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Derived from anima, the Latin word for breath or soul, the term Animalia, coined by naturalist Carl von Linné (1707–1778), encompasses both humans and animals. In contrast to this model of equality, humans' treatment of animals is characterized by a clear hierarchy.
As the supposed “pinnacle of evolution,” as beings of reason that rise above the animal world, humans assign ambivalent roles to animals. Artistic representations that make these different attributions visible say a lot about humans themselves, allowing conclusions to be drawn about their self-image and methods of projection. Thus, humans are already present in every image of animals—even when they are not part of the representation.

The exhibition explores the question of which social and historical structures are inscribed in representations of animals. They range from the idea of “man's best friend” to the humanization and objectification of animals to their exploitation. At the same time, the exhibition allows us to view ANIMALIA as a thought experiment—beyond a shared biological category—as a principle of a shared model of life that considers animals as fellow creatures and co-actors.