Vienna museum explores the uneasy bond between humans and animals

An exhibition at the Dom Museum Wien examines the complicated relationship between people and animals, from affection to exploitation. The show, which ranges from the Middle Ages to the present, is sometimes funny and sometimes unsettling, ORF reports.

“Before you came here, perhaps you fed your cat; at lunch you might eat a schnitzel, and in the afternoon you might swat a moth,” museum director Johanna Schwanberg said, summing up the relationship’s contradictions. She said the exhibition is not simply a collection of animal images.

In the museum’s stairwell, photographs by Werner Feiersinger create what co-curator Vanessa Joan Müller called “a complete zoo, from the hippopotamus to the penguin.” The exhibition also features paintings of dogs by Alois Mosbacher, a 350-kilogram stone dog-like waterspout from St Stephen’s Cathedral, and Flora N. Galowitz’s attempt to recreate her dog in aluminium foil.

The exhibition is organised into five sections, reflecting both the subject’s contradictions and the idea that all life is of equal value. In “Ambivalent Points of Contact,” a photograph from VALIE EXPORT’s “Mappe der Hundigkeit” shows the artist leading Peter Weibel on a leash at Stephansplatz, alongside an equestrian painting by Ferdinand Rauch.

In “Hunted, Tormented, Eaten,” Deborah Sengl reverses the usual power dynamic in a diorama showing mice experimenting on human fingers. Other sections explore animals as changeable symbols, animals on display or in captivity, and the coexistence of different creatures.

Among the works are a photograph from Aneta Grzeszykowska’s “Domestic Animals” series, in which dogs wear human masks, and Jan Stolker’s 1766 family portrait, which includes a guinea pig. The animal was then a sought-after status symbol, the exhibition explains.

Artists in the show include Herbert Boeckl, James Ensor and Chaïm Soutine. Maria Lassnig is represented by two works. The exhibition poster features a photograph by Graciela Iturbide of a Mexican market woman with live iguanas on her head.

In Luzia Hürzeler’s video “Self-Portrait for the Cat,” her cat licks a bust of the artist made from cat food, gradually changing its shape. The exhibition runs from October 2, 2026, to August 22, 2027, at Dom Museum Wien, Stephansplatz 6. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.