Postmodern Animal

Book excerpt: In The Postmodern Animal, Steve Baker explores how animal imagery has been used in modern and contemporary art and performance, and in postmodern philosophy and literature, to suggest and shape ideas about identity and creativity. Baker cogently analyses the work of such European and American artists as Olly and Suzi, Mark Dion, Paula Rego and Sue Coe, at the same time looking critically at the constructions, performances and installations of Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys and other significant late twentieth-century artists. Baker's book draws parallels between the animal's place in postmodern art and poststructuralist theory, drawing on works as diverse as Jacques Derrida's recent analysis of the role of animals in philosophical thought and Julian Barnes's best-selling Flaubert's Parrot.