This image is a screen grab showing a black rhinoceros in the sky-- a haunting, modern image that is strangely evocative of Albrecht Durer's woodcut of an Indian rhinoceros. This rhinoceros is traveling to a new & safer home, courtesy of a collaboration of groups including WWF and the South African National Parks. Durer's rhinoceros depicts an Indian rhinoceros which traveled safely from Goa, India to King Manuel I of Portugal via Cape Hope in 1515-- only to be drowned at sea in 1516 on its way to Rome. Its body recovered and taxidermied, the rhino continued its celebrity after finishing its journey to Rome.
Both are passengers of enforced travel, created by the passions of mankind. One chained to a wooden ship, the other hangs from helicopter. Both environments -- sea and sky-- are profound contrasts to the natural environment of the animal(s).
In these journeys, the imagination sails--Where does the hoof gain purchase? What does the horn impale? Blindfolded, shackeled and bound, the rhinos float in movement of impossible gracefulness to a bewildering future....
Does the transport signal the start of new life that affords only an enforced but adapted comfort? Nothing suggests this more completely to me than the amazing rhinoceros chair created by Maximo Riera (which I first saw at toonboom.com).
See more about Durer's rhino-- an image invented from only verbal descriptions--and the animal's extraordinary influence in the history of art at
See more about the incredible rhino lift in the March 2012 issue of National Geographic Magazine and msnbc's photo gallery at
