Circle Contemporary in Chicago presents "Wild Thing," a group exhibition curated by Pia Singh that explores the interconnectedness of humans and animals through the lens of darshana, the Indian philosophical concept of sacred mutual seeing. The show features around twenty-six artists, including those from Arts of Life, with works ranging from D. Rosen's pewter-cast dog toy "Chew Toy (Lana)" (2025) to Jasmeen Patheja's "Every Body" photographs and a Pichwai painting from Singh's own collection. A special highlight is Tongji Philip Qian's "Finding the Spiral Jetty" (2024), which involved a dog named Grappa operating a GoPro camera.
The exhibition matters because it reframes humanity's relationship with the natural world and animals as a reciprocal, even sacred, encounter, challenging viewers to recognize the divine in the gaze of other creatures. By blending contemporary art with traditional Indian devotional painting (Pichwai) and emphasizing joy and empathy over didacticism, "Wild Thing" offers a timely counterpoint to anthropocentric narratives, urging deeper attention to the non-human others with whom we share the planet.