With the exhibition Animalia. Of Animals and Humans, the Heidi Horten Collection explores the complex relationship between humans and animals. The term Animalia, borrowed from biology, serves as a guiding concept for a critical examination of how humans treat animals, a relationship reflected in more than 100 artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries.
 
Derived from anima, the Latin word for breath or soul, the term Animalia, coined by the naturalist Carl von Linné (1707–1778), encompasses both humans and animals alike. In contrast to this model of equality, the way humans treat animals is marked by a clear hierarchy.
 
As the supposed “pinnacle of evolution,” as a rational being that rises above the animal world, humans assign animals ambivalent roles. Artistic representations that make these different attributions visible reveal much about humans themselves; they allow conclusions to be drawn about human self-understanding and methods of projection. Thus, humans are already present in every image of an animal—even when they are not part of the depiction.