The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens has opened "Why Look at Animals: A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives," a major exhibition curated by Katerina Gregos that spans seven floors and features over 60 artists. The show confronts animal exploitation through works such as Ang Siew Ching's video "High-Rise Pigs" (2025), depicting a 26-story factory farm in China, and Art Orienté Objet's charcoal map of endangered species slowly erased by a robotic arm. Other artists include Sue Coe, Igor Grubić, and Janis Rafa, with the exhibition taking its title from a John Berger essay.
This is the first exhibition of its scale to use contemporary art to address animal liberation, a topic often avoided due to its uncomfortable implications for personal consumption habits. Gregos spent a decade pitching the idea before curating it "with a vengeance," and the show's size and scope signal a growing willingness in the art world to engage with urgent ethical and environmental issues, including factory farming's role in greenhouse gas emissions. By linking animal suffering to broader systems of capitalism and colonialism, the exhibition positions itself as both an artistic and political intervention.