There’s a new art exhibit in NYC that animal activists are not particularly fond of at the moment.
Opened by artist Joseph Grazi on October 19th in the Lower East Side’s Castle Fitzjohns Gallery, the exhibit addresses the various phobias people have. Not just any phobias, but those he deems to be “irrational.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BapFBGeFZjm/?hl=en&taken-by=castlefitzjohnsgallery
Called “Prehysteria,” when you enter the gallery you’ll immediately see a checkered floor that features live mice within black tile boxes.
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Each white mouse gets its own box below clear plexiglass. Grazi says they are given water and food, and would have been fed to other animals had he not purchased them for this exhibit.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BazM6xTgVMj/?hl=en&taken-by=josephgrazi
Activist Natasha Millikan, however, is not pleased. She began a Facebook group called “Rats and Mice are Awesome”, and has visited the exhibit in protest. Millikan told The New York Times in a recent article that “[t]hey have the instinct to be terrified from anything up above them, any shadow. So at this point, these guys are just shutting down.”
While it doesn’t seem like the gallery will be closing the exhibit, it will end on November 20th.
Featured image source: Instagram / Castle Fitzjohns Gallery