Circle of Animals
May 9, 2015 - January 3, 2016
Internationally acclaimed Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei has reinterpreted the 12 bronze animal heads representing the traditional Chinese zodiac animals that once adorned the famed fountain-clock of the Yuanming Yuan, an imperial retreat in Beijing. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is honored to be bringing Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Head World Tour to Wyoming after exhibitions in Mexico City, Chicago, London, Toronto, New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles.
Designed in the 18th century by two European Jesuit priests serving in the court of the Qing-dynasty Emperor Qianlong, the 12 Chinese zodiac animals originally functioned as parts of a water clock-fountain sited in the magnificent, European-style gardens of the Yuanming Yuan. In 1860, the Yuanming Yuan was ransacked by French and British troops, and the heads were pillaged. In reinterpreting these objects on an oversize scale, Ai Weiwei focuses attention on questions of looting and repatriation, while extending his ongoing exploration of the “fake” and the copy in relation to the original.











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State of the Art: Student Art Show in Honor of Marion Buchenroth
Through June 4, 2023This youth art exhibit is an annual collaboration between the National Museum of Wildlife Art and art educators from Teton County schools. The several hundred works of art on display beautifully demonstrate how students grow as artists as they move through grades K-12. Each art educator and group of students interpreted the theme Transformation in their own way.
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For the Love of Canines
Through August 27, 2023For the Love of Canines questions humans’ relation and fascination with canines, whether love or loathing, through works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection.
See the Exhibit