Seeing Animals, Eating Animals

Consider this: L’Innocent, 1949 photograph by Robert Doisneau. Doisneau/Rapho

A dour Frenchman regarding a calf’s head in a butcher shop window. A delectably painted still life of a peeled lemon and meat pie. A 1,500-year-old Mesoamerican ceramic toy dog with axle and wheels. These and other works of art will complement the 2011 freshman summer- reading book, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, in an installation at the Nasher Museum of Art.

For the first time, the Nasher will join the summer-reading discussion by displaying works in a variety of media spanning more than 2,000 years. The installation will ask viewers—whether carnivores, omnivores, vegetarians, or vegans—to consider what meat means to them.

It will be on view from August 18 to October 16.