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This Feline-Inspired Exhibit Considers Your Cat's Artistic Influence

A museum in Worcester, MA delivers a unique ‘cat and museum’ game.
Head of Cat, Egyptian, Eleventh Dynasty, bronze, Mrs. Kingsmill Marrs Collection. All images courtesy of Worcester Art Museum

Nary a single hairball, an exhibit dedicated to the world of felines in art has burst forth with a fur(r)y, slinking through a timeline from the 19th century craze to our internet obsession. Cats, held in high esteem since at least Ancient Egypt, have emerged as timeless and universally iconographic idols. Consisting of multiple branches, MEOW: A Cat-Inspired Exhibit dedicates itself to the imagery of cats, with installations, community engagement activities, and interactive programs, like the Community Cat Show. The exhibit examines both the artistic and viral sides of Felis catus, and is open for viewing now at the Worcester Art Museum.

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Woman with a Cat, Gustave Courbet, 1864, oil on canvas

Black Panther, 1987, Yoshida, Toshi, woodblock print, ink and color on paper chuban, gift from the Judith and Paul A. Falcigno Collection, ©Estate of Yoshida Toshi

Female Figure with Peony Branch, Accompanied by a Lion, Qing Dynasty, lapis lazuli, bequest of Mrs. Harry W. Goddard, in memory of Harry W. Goddard

MEOW’s main exhibition is The Captivating Cat: Felines and the Artist’s Gaze, which includes over 70 pieces from the Worcester Art Museum’s permanent collection. As described in an official press release, The Captivating Cat addresses the parallels between “the cat as a metaphor for the modern artist and [the] connections in representations of big and house cats.” The collection is guest-curated by Ruth Dibble, PhD candidate in the history of art at Yale University. Dibble’s curatorial direction focuses not only as the cat as a mirror, but a muse: “A key work in the exhibition is Asakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi Festivals by Ando Hiroshige. In it, there is a sense that being a cat is a lot like being an artist. Both are at once at a remove from the world, yet also consuming it through watchful eyes.”

Other artists who appear in the exhibit include Will Barnet, Albrecht Dürer, Takebe Ryotai, Toshi Yoshida, and Harry Gordon.

The Ambush, 1938, Orovida Camille Pissarro, etching and aquatint on cream laid paper, ©Estate of Orovida Pissarro

A Mexican Coquette, 1912, Helen Hyde, woodcut on cream Japan paper, anonymous gift

Meditation and Minou, 1980, Will Barnet, Gift of the Artist, ©Will Barnet Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY, Alexandre Gallery, New York, NY

Collaboration through audience involvement fills up the exhibit almost as much as cats. The Community Cat Show is a crowdsourced effort that asks museum visitors and community members to contribute their own cat-themed artworks. One of Worcester’s directors, Adam Rozan, told The Creators Project, “What makes an exhibition on cats so great is that the public is as excited about the topic as we are, if not more so. Inviting anyone from the public to get involved was a prerequisite of MEOW and Community Cat Show from the beginning—and we had a tremendous response [of] over 230 submissions.”

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Similarly, another facet of the exhibit joins visitors through education. Cats-in-Residence concentrates on feline overpopulation in urban regions and adoption opportunities in the Worcester area. The program partners with Worcester Animal League by arranging an “inter-species lounge filled with art for humans and cats to enjoy together.”

MEOW’s directors aimed to rethink the typical gallery approach by encouraging engagement with the audiencel, as well as diversifying the exhibit with many different tributaries. Other features include the Cat-Walk, a less formal, viewing of the artwork following a hallway path; Cat Craft Classes, workshop courses that invite visitors to create pet accessories and dive deeper into the "cats in art" motif; Helmutt’s Dog Show, a canine-focused selection starring the Worcester Museum’s mascot, Helmutt, a cartoon German Bound Hound.

Egyptian Cat, 26th Dynasty (672-525 BC)

Untitled (Girl with Cat and Titles), Twentieth Century, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, color lithograph on cream wove paper, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hall James Peterson, ©2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

MEOW: A Cat-Inspired Exhibit runs May 21–September 4, 2016 at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. See more details of the exhibit, here.

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