FROM SHOEBOX TO WHITE CUBE: A ROUNDUP OF HOMEMADE PET MUSEUMS

With institutions shuttered around the world during the pandemic, a new cultural phenomenon has emerged: pet museums.

Valentina Di Liscia

Two-year-old guinea pig Maisie with a work after Frida Kahlo, “Self Portrait Dedicated to Dr. DoLittle” (images courtesy of Teresa Mistretta)

The pandemic has taken a serious toll on the cultural sphere, with institutions large and small shuttering worldwide. But in one niche sector of the industry, business is booming: animal museums, the new pastime of quarantining art-loving pet owners everywhere.

 Maisie during her private tour of the Piggenheim Collection in New Jersey.

Hyperallergic

reported on the first-ever Gerbil Museum in London and the Gecko Museum in Texas, and even brought you a scoop on a Kusama room for a very VIP lizard in California. Today, we celebrate the art that is turning shoeboxes into white-cube galleries for confused-looking animals that are none the wiser with a roundup of the best pet museums and spaces, in no particular rank:

The Piggenheim Collection, New Jersey

Move over, Peggy: this two-year-old, impeccably-groomed guinea pig from New Jersey with a sharp eye and expensive taste may just dethrone one of the art world’s most well-known patrons. The Piggenheim Collection is the brainchild of Maisie the guinea pig’s owner Teresa Mistretta and includes the rare “Self Portrait Dedicated to Dr. DoLittle,” after Frida Kahlo, as well as “The Treachery of Vegetables,” a spin on French surrealist René Magritte’s famous “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”……………………

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