Sudan, the only remaining male northern white rhinoceros.
Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya.
This project documents Sudan, the last white rhinoceros of North Africa. Sudan lived his life inside the Prague zoo, before being transferred to Kenya for reproduction and specie preservation. Sudan lives under armed protection. Giovanna Silva spent ten days in his wildlife preserve, following him from a close distance. The book, entitled Good Boy – the way the guards call the rhinoceros, this lullaby which endlessly accompanied Giovanna’s days with the rhino – 0372, his breeding number, is a tribute to this prehistoric and unique animal. The book is conceived as a sequence of abstract images, in which the animal is barely recognizable, and close-up of his skin and his body progressively fading away.

Fallschirmspringende Hunde, ferngesteuerte Haie, Raketen, die von Tauben gelenkt werden, Katzen mit implantierten Abhörgeräten : In diesem Buch geht es um Tiere, die der Mensch zu Kriegsteilnehmern gemacht hat. Die militärische Nutzung von Tieren spielt seit Anbeginn der Kriegsgeschichte eine entscheidende Rolle. Tiere sind ständige Wegbegleiter, jedoch keineswegs ebenbürtige Partner der Menschen. 32 erstaunliche, skurrile und bizarre Tiersoldaten dieses Buches zeigen, dass der Mensch keine Grenzen kennt, wenn es darum geht, sich gegenüber dem Feind einen Vorteil zu verschaffen. Woher kommt die Selbstsicherheit, mit der der Mensch sich die Fähigkeiten der Tiere zunutze macht ? Welche Konsequenzen hat das für Mensch und Tier, und wie und warum gerät der Vormachtsglaube der Menschen gerade zu Kriegszeiten ins Wanken?

A Song of Life presents Diana Michener’s most recent body of work, poignant photographs of animals that for the artist have become close to self-portraits.

Michener began photographing animals unexpectedly during a trip to India in 2006 where, intimidated by the chaos of the street, she wandered into a zoo and turned her lens to its rhinoceros, elephants and gazelles. Haunted by the resulting images of confinement, Michener became increasingly obsessed with them and decided to expand the project, first at the menagerie at Paris’ Jardin des Plants and later in various zoos throughout Europe and the USA. During her visit to each zoo, Michener remained silent and still for hours in front of the cages, almost in communion with these creatures who take on a close to mythical dignity in her photos.

Our relationship with animals is fraught and contradictory: we simultaneously mythologize, venerate, sacrifice, and exploit those who are not of our species. This paradox suggests that our connection with animals might be more complicated, and far richer, than commonly thought, and that the distinction between human and animal is not at all clear-cut. By laying down a novel artistic and theoretical framework, Animality, devised by Jens Hoffmann in conjunction with Marian Goodman Gallery, looks to examine this complex relationship. Written to accompany an exhibition of the same name, it includes more than seventy participants, mostly from the world of art, but also covering film, literature, philosophy, and science.

Lous Martens about the book: "Seventeen years ago our grandson Jaap was born. That was the start of an animal book for Jaap. I used a dummy for the OASE journal of architecture and loosely pasted in pictures of animals that I had clipped from newspapers and magazines about art, literature and science. Plus stamps and photos from advertising brochures. Then Zeno was born and the same thing happened: an animal book for Zeno. Now I was working on two books at once. Then came Anna. Julian. Luca. At this point, there were five books-in-the-making on the table. And none of those five are finished yet. The children, as well as myself, enjoy seeing the small, ever-evolving changes. The additions. These books were never intended for the outside world where I had found all the pictures. Never intended to be published. Now they lie here, grouped into one big book, because others have convinced me it's what they deserve."

The beloved children’s book “Click”, said the camera., first published in 1997, is available again. It features animal portraits by photographer Balthasar Burkhard, who started the series in 1995.

The twenty animals meet for the photographer’s beauty contest. On Burkhard’s portraits all the animals are equally beautiful. The protagonist of the story is a shy donkey watching the cheerful activity. Markus Jakob describes the illustrious rendezvous with kind and humorous words.

Balthasar Burkhard (1944–2010) was a Swiss photographer well-known for his large-format black-and-white photography.
Markus Jakob (born 1954) writes features, reports, and miscellanea for various media.