Tomorrow Night at Observatory! "Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy," Lecture by Marie Dauenheimer

Just a quick reminder: tomorrow night at Observatory! Marie Dauenheimer--the curator of the "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition discussed in this recent post--will be on hand at Observatory to deliver an illustrated lecture that "will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy." You can read a full description here. Full event details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy
An illustrated presentation by Marie Dauenheimer of the Vesalius Trust
Date: May 1, 2010
Time: 8:00 P.M.
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight’s visual presentation by Marie Dauenheimer will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy which Dauenheimer toured as part of last years Vesalius Trust “Art and Anatomy Tour.” First, the University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy, famous for its collection of wax pathological models created in the 19th century, including an amazing life size leper; then The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna featuring the work of famed wax modeling team of Anna Morandi Manzolini and her husband Giovanni Manzolini, whose life size wax models inspired Clement Susini and the wax-modeling workshop in Florence (see image above); and lastly the fascinating University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy, which houses the beautiful 18th century frescoed dissection theater, where anatomist Antonio Scarpa. So join us tonight for wine, fellowship, and a virtual and very visual tour of some of the finest and most fascinating medical museums of Italy!

Marie Dauenheimer is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator working in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. She specializes in creating medical illustrations and animations for educational materials, including posters, brochures, books, websites and interactive media. Since 1997 Marie has organized and led numerous “Art and Anatomy Tours” throughout Europe for the Vesalius Trust. Past tours have explored anatomical museums, rare book collections and dissection theatres in Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Scotland and England. In addition to illustrating Marie teaches drawing, life drawing and human and animal anatomy at the Art Institute of Washington. Part of Marie’s anatomy class involves study and drawing from cadavers in the Anatomy Lab at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC (for more on that, see this recent post).

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To learn more about Marie's "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition, click here. For more on the Vesalius Trust, click here.

Image: Self-portrait of wax modeller Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a human brain, Bologna, c. 1760; Via Scienza a Due Voci

"Imaging / Imagining the Skeleton," Symposium, Tomorrow, Friday, April 30, 1:00-4pm, CUNY Graduate Center

I just found out about a pretty intriguing looking event taking place in New York City tomorrow afternoon: "Imaging / Imagining the Skeleton," a free Symposium at CUNY Graduate Center. Participants include friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy and future Observatory lecturer (click here for details) Mark Dery.

Full details below; hope to see you there!

Imaging / Imagining the Skeleton
Friday, April 30, 1:00-4pm
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave. (at 34th St.), NYC
Rooms 9206 / 9207
No reservations. First come, first seated
Caroline Jones KEYNOTE, MIT, History, Theory, Art History
Vincent Stefan, Lehman College CUNY, Anthropology
Lisa E. Farrington, John Jay College CUNY, Art History and Race
Mark Dery, Independent Scholar
Tatiana Garmendia, Artist
Dr. Joseph Lane, Hospital for Special Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery
Co-Sponsored by the Ph.D. Program in Art History and Science & the Arts CUNY Graduate Center; Funded by the John Rewald Endowment of the Ph.D. Program in Art History

Imaging/Imagining the Skeleton is a symposium organized to explore how social conceptions of the human form have evolved alongside the increasing ability of science/medicine to represent the body. The speakers will present a constellation of inter-disciplinary discussions about the relationship between representing/exhibiting the body, evolving conceptualizations of the body and bones, and artistic and professional responses to new medical imaging technologies. The underlying proposition is that the ability to investigate and represent the body—at the levels of both anatomy and function—has exerted a profound impact on how the relationship between the physical body and human experience is conceived. Those changing conceptions, in turn, have had far-reaching consequences for the humanities, social sciences, public policy, and artistic practice.

Symposium attendees will receive a catalogue from the exhibition Visionary Anatomies, originally presented at the National Academy of Sciences.

Introductory remarks by Kevin Murphy, Professor of Art History. Panel discussion moderated by Adrienne Klein, co-Director, Science & the Arts.

Speaker Bios and Paper Topics
Professor Caroline Jones will speak on “Senses, mediation, and selves beyond the skin.” Jones explores selected art works that use the trope of the skeleton to indicate “penetrating” views of the self, but contrasts these with a recent sensory turn that suggests a broader critique of modern ocularity. Caroline Jones studies modern and contemporary art, with a particular focus on its technological modes of production, distribution, and reception. Previous to completing her art history degree, she worked in museum administration and exhibition curation, holding positions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1977-83) and the Harvard University Art Museums (1983-85), and completed two documentary films. In addition to these institutions, her exhibitions and/or films have been shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, the Hara Museum Tokyo, and the Boston University Art Gallery, among other venues. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (among others), and has been honored by fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and the Max Planck Institüt (2001-02), the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton (1994-95), and the Stanford Humanities Center (1986-87). Her books include Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist, (1996/98, winner of the Charles Eldredge Prize from the Smithsonian Institution); Bay Area Figurative Art, 1950-1965, (1990, awarded the silver medal from San Francisco's Commonwealth Club); and Modern Art at Harvard (1985).

Professor Vincent H. Stefan, Lehman College CUNY, will speak on “Human Skeletal Variations” as it relates to analysis of skeletal structures both prehistoric and contemporary. Dr. Stefan's field of general interest is physical anthropology with specialization in human skeletal biology. His fields of study include human osteology and skeletal biology; forensic anthropology; paleoanthropology; quantitative methods; Rapa Nui (Easter Island) skeletal biology; Polynesian skeletal biology. Current research interests include the documentation and analysis of contemporary and prehistoric human skeletal variation. Future research will focus on the use of these same procedures to assess metric cranial/skeletal variation for understanding the peopling of all of Polynesia and Oceania. Currently Professor Stefan regularly consults with the Nassau County Medical Examiner, East Meadow, NY, the Suffolk County Medical Examiner, Hauppauge, NY, and the Westchester County, Department of Laboratories & Research, Office of the Medical Examiner, Valhalla, NY in cases involving human skeletal remains. He is expert in the recovery of decomposed/ skeletonized human remains, and in the identification of victims from skeletal remains.

Professor Lisa E. Farrington will speak on “de Bouffon's 1805 published autopsy findings on the body of Sartjie Baartman” Professor Lisa E. Farrington is the founding Chair of John Jay’s Art & Music Department, as well as an accomplished curator, author, and art historian. In 2007-2008 she was awarded the prestigious William and Camille Cosby Endowed Scholars chair at Atlanta University’s historically black women’s college, Spelman. She has earned numerous academic degrees, including PhD and Master of Philosophy degrees from the CUNY Graduate Center in New York, an MA in art history from American University, a BFA (magna cum laude) from Howard University, and an Honors Degree in painting and illustration from New York's School of Art & Design. Dr. Farrington worked for many years at the Museum of Modern Art and, from 1994 to 2007, was senior art historian at Parsons School of Design (the fine arts division of The New School). She specializes in Western and Non-Western Art, Haitian Art and Vodou Culture, African-American Art, Women’s Art, and Race and Gender studies. She has also taught the on-site museum art history course at Parsons Atelier in Paris, France. Dr. Farrington is a Mellon, Magnet, U.S. State Department, and Ford Foundation Fellow, and was a consultant for The College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) Art History program. She has published ten books and a dozen scholarly essays in the past decade, including two monographs on artist Faith Ringgold, and a 2005 textbook for Oxford University Press entitled Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists, which recently won three major academic literary awards, including the American Library Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to Publishing, the American Association of Black Women Historians Annual Book Award, and the Richard Wright/Zora Neale Hurston Foundation nomination for non-fiction. She recently won the Andy Warhol Foundation / Creative Capital Arts Writers prize for 2010.

Mark Dery will speak on "The Anatomical Unconscious: X-Ray Specs, Visible Women, and the Eros of the Unseen," a cultural critique of the eroticizing of the scientific gaze. Mark Dery is a cultural critic. His byline has appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times Magazine to Rolling Stone to Salon to Cabinet, and his lectures have taken him to Australia to Austria, Belgium to Brazil, Macedonia to Mexico. He has been a professor in the Department of Journalism at New York University, a Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow at UC Irvine, and a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome. Dery is best known for his writings on the politics of popular culture in books such as The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink and Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century. He is widely associated with the concept of “culture jamming,” the guerrilla media criticism movement he popularized through his 1993 essay “Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs,” and “Afrofuturism,” a term he coined and theorized in his 1994 essay “Black to the Future” (included in the anthology Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, which he edited). More at www.markdery.com.

Tatiana Garmendia, MFA, will speak by remote uplink on her “X-ray Painting and Graphite Series”and explore some of the dichotomies between actual and conceptual representations of body and bones. Tatiana Garmendia is a figurative artist with a conceptual twist. Her work synthesizes formal concerns and a humanist engagement with history and culture. Born in Cuba, she was raised a devotee of Santeria - the syncretic mix of Yoruba mysticism and Spanish Catholicism. She also hails from a family of doctors and medical researchers. “I grew up in a household where the human body, in various guises of dejection and exaltation, was a primary theme in devotional and medical imagery. In my earliest recollections, the body is both flesh and mythological certainty." Repatriation from the Spanish government took the artist’s family first to Madrid, and later to the U.S.A. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and has degrees from Florida International University, and Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn.

Dr. Joseph Lane, MD, Professor Orthopedic Surgery and Assistant Dean, Weill Cornell Medical College and Chief Metabolic Bone Disease Hospital for Special Surgery, will speak on “Reconstructing the Skeleton.” He presents the skeleton including radiographs, bone scans, PET scans, CT scans and MRI, and will suggest some of the implications of changing methods for “reading” skeletons and bones. Joseph M. Lane, MD has published extensively on bone biology, tissue injury and repair, trauma, bone and soft tissue sarcomas (including osteogenic sarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma), limb preservation, functional amputations, limb regeneration, and metabolic bone diseases (osteoporosis, Paget’s disease, rickets, osteomalacia, fibrous dysplasia). He has served on numerous committees for the AAOS, including the Board of Directors and Chairman of COMSS, the Chairman Oversight Panel on Women’s Health Issues. He was President of the Orthopaedic Research Society, Musculoskeletal Tumor Society, Chairman of NIH Orthopaedic Study Section, OREF grants review board, ABOS Question Writing Task Force. He is a member of the AAOS, AOA, ABJS, ASBMR, ORS, MSTS, and OTA. He has earned NIH career and R01 grants, OREF grants, and foundation awards. He has been a visiting professor at educational institutes and is on the editorial board of several peer journals.

Thanks so much to friend, artist, and book-club partner Laura Splan for tipping me off to this!

Image (click on image to see much larger version): from Mike Sappol and the National Library of Medicine's incomparable Dream Anatomy Exhibition; Caption reads: Elementi di anatomia fisiologica applicata alle belle arti figurative, Turin, 1837-39. Lithograph. National Library of Medicine; Francesco Bertinatti (fl. mid-1800s) [anatomist]; Mecco Leone [artist]. The anatomical studies for real, imaginary and prospective sculptures and paintings became a genre in its own right in the early and middle decades of the 19th century.

"Excellent Old-School Science Models," Life Magazine Photo Gallery

The images you see above--and the captions below--are drawn from a really fantastic Life Magazine online photo gallery entitled "Excellent Old-School Science Models." You can see the entire gallery of 29 images--well worth your perusal!--by clicking here.

Captions top to bottom, as supplied by the gallery:

1. Isn't She Lovely: Trainee nurses examine a model of a human body to learn anatomy, Gerry Cranham, Oct. 7, 1938
2. Behind It All: A technician works on life-like models for use in science and health lectures at the Cologne Health Museum in Germany, Ralph Crane, Feb 01, 1955
3. Going Deep: A technician at the Cologne Health Museum gets into his work, Ralph Crane, Feb 01, 1955
4. The Egg Factory: An exhibit illustrates the biology of the chicken at the World Poultry Exhibition at the Crystal Palace exhibition hall in London, Fox Photos, Jul 28, 1930
5. Universal: A girl scout leans in to take a closer look at an enclosed model of the solar system, circa 1920s, George Eastman House, Jan 01, 1920

Found via Morbid Anatomy Library intern Amber Duntley's Facebook feed. Thanks, Amber!

"Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy," Lecture by Marie Dauenheimer, Observatory, Saturday May 1

This Saturday night, Marie Dauenheimer--the curator of the "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition discussed in yesterday's post--will be on hand at Observatory to deliver an illustrated lecture that "will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy." One of the museums discussed will be The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna, which houses--among other works--an incredible wax self-portrait of Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a brain (c. 1760 ; see above). The other two musems she will discuss will be the fantastic and difficult-to-access University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy and the University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy.

Marie--who also leads tours of medical museums for the Vesalius Trust (as discussed in this recent post)--is an excellent speaker; her lecture on Italian Wax Anatomical Models in European Collections, which she gave about a year ago, was beloved by all, and we are exceptionally pleased to be hosting her again!

Full details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy
An illustrated presentation by Marie Dauenheimer of the Vesalius Trust
Date: May 1, 2010
Time: 8:00 P.M.
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight’s visual presentation by Marie Dauenheimer will survey the collections of three unique and often over-looked anatomical museums in Northern Italy which Dauenheimer toured as part of last years Vesalius Trust “Art and Anatomy Tour.” First, the University of Florence Museum of Pathological Anatomy, famous for its collection of wax pathological models created in the 19th century, including an amazing life size leper; then The Museum of Human Anatomy in Bologna featuring the work of famed wax modeling team of Anna Morandi Manzolini and her husband Giovanni Manzolini, whose life size wax models inspired Clement Susini and the wax-modeling workshop in Florence (see image above); and lastly the fascinating University of Pavia Museum of Anatomy, which houses the beautiful 18th century frescoed dissection theater, where anatomist Antonio Scarpa. So join us tonight for wine, fellowship, and a virtual and very visual tour of some of the finest and most fascinating medical museums of Italy!

Marie Dauenheimer is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator working in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. She specializes in creating medical illustrations and animations for educational materials, including posters, brochures, books, websites and interactive media. Since 1997 Marie has organized and led numerous “Art and Anatomy Tours” throughout Europe for the Vesalius Trust. Past tours have explored anatomical museums, rare book collections and dissection theatres in Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Scotland and England. In addition to illustrating Marie teaches drawing, life drawing and human and animal anatomy at the Art Institute of Washington. Part of Marie’s anatomy class involves study and drawing from cadavers in the Anatomy Lab at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC (for more on that, see this recent post).

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To learn more about Marie's "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration" exhibition, click here. For more on the Vesalius Trust, click here.

Image: Self-portrait of wax modeller Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a human brain, Bologna, c. 1760; Via Scienza a Due Voci

"Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration," Exhibition Curated by Marie Dauenheimer, Arlington, Virginia

"We have the gift of language, the gift of making memories in words and pictures," Aziz says. "The bodies are gone, but by making these memories, we, to an extent, resurrect them. This is the antidote to death."--David Montgomery, "In gross anatomy, Howard U.'s Ashraf Aziz sees nothing but grace," Washington Post, Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Marie Dauenheimer, friend, friend of Morbid Anatomy, and Observatory lecturer past and future (more on that future lecture--which is entitled "Three Unique Medical Museums in Northern Italy" and will take place on Saturday May 1--soon!) has curated an exhibition of artworks inspired by the cadaver as part of a year-long collaboration between Howard's College of Medicine and the Art Institute of Washington. The Washington Post just ran a really lovely and in-depth story about the exhibition and the collaboration; it was such an interesting article that I have posted it here in its entirety:

In gross anatomy, Howard U.'s Ashraf Aziz sees nothing but grace
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

At 71, Ashraf Aziz has spent half his life cutting open cadavers and initiating medical students at Howard University into the pungent mysteries of human anatomy. He likes the heads. Extracting the muscles of chewing is one of his specialties. There is little about the body that can faze him anymore.

And yet, here in a little art gallery across the street from the Rosslyn Metro station, this most eloquent and loquacious man of science has been rendered almost speechless.

"I, I'm really a little bit -- " he stammers.

He sounds like a first-year medical student about to be overcome in the embalming room.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Tears well in his eyes.

Surrounded by red-wine-sipping artists and art students on a recent evening, the anatomist is contemplating their renderings of the human body. The nudes not only have no clothes, they also have no skin. The subjects are cadavers -- cadavers from the lab where Aziz teaches gross anatomy.

"I'm so deeply moved," he says. He never thought he would find such kindred spirits.

This exhibit, "Anatomical Art: Dissection to Illustration," is just one outcome of an unusual year-old collaboration between Howard's College of Medicine and the Art Institute of Washington. The cross-disciplinary ping-pong continues strong in both directions:

There is talk of enlisting animators from the art school to enhance lessons on locomotion at the medical school. An Art Institute sculptor presented Aziz with some fancy modeling clay, which he used to take an impression from the inside of a chimpanzee skull as part of his comparative chew-muscle research.

Meanwhile, at the art school, to such curriculum standards as "life drawing" -- portraits of live, nude models -- has been added the informal option of, well, dead drawing, in the cadaver lab. Some artists have taken to exploring -- and memorizing the Latin names of -- complex muscle groups that invisibly influence the supple motions of the living torso.

Perhaps most striking has been seeing the life and career of one of Washington's singularly passionate scientists come full circle.

The son of amateur artists in the Indian diaspora, growing up in Tanzania, Aziz, too, once wanted to become an artist. But his poet-carpenter father and his henna-painter mother feared there wasn't a secure future in art. So Aziz became a zoologist and a human anatomist, an associate professor at Howard.

The choice was apt, for the study of anatomy has embraced art -- and vice versa -- at least since Leonardo da Vinci performed dissections and drew the results. From "Gray's Anatomy," the seminal 19th-century illustrated text, to latter-day sensational exhibitions of plasticized cadavers such as "Bodies" and "Body Worlds," the dissected corpse continues to fascinate, repulse, instruct and inspire.

Aziz believes that when science and art diverge, both lose. He draws his own illustrations. To conclude his regular medical lecture on the hand and forearm, he has had traditional Indian tabla drummers demonstrate the dexterity of the muscles and tendons that his students will tweeze in the cadaver lab. In 1999 he co-wrote a 19-page academic journal article in which he cited Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Marshall McLuhan, along with medical authorities. The ostensible subject was to defend the relevance of the "real" cadaver in medical education despite the rise of digital "cyber cadavers" -- but really the piece was a stirring meditation on authenticity. Away from the lab he reads poetry and writes essays on popular Indian cinema.

Aziz's dream has been to see what a new generation of artists would bring to a new generation of cadavers. Even if the results were nothing revolutionary, he thought, the process itself would be illuminating for all involved: Where life has ended, insight might begin.

Anatomy for art students
As Aziz was casting his thoughts from the realm of science to art, an artist named Marie Dauenheimer was thinking in the other direction.

In 1979, five years after Aziz began teaching at Howard, Dauenheimer was sitting in a class, Gross Anatomy for Artists, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. What a concept, she thought: The students would spend a couple of hours in a studio life drawing, then cross the hall to the anatomy lab. They would shuttle back and forth from living to dead, surface to structure, skin-deep to skinless.

"That was a turning point for me," she says.

She got a master's in medical illustration at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she took gross anatomy and dissected a cadaver. "I loved every minute of it," she says. "To explore the human body and then being able to draw it."

She built a career as a freelance illustrator -- drawing surgical procedures, molecular structures, physiological processes. Four years ago she joined the faculty of the Art Institute, teaching classes in life drawing and human and animal anatomy.

Last year she conceived a summer sabbatical to realize one of her own dreams. She wanted to conjure those epiphanic student days in the anatomy lab. She proposed to develop a more powerful way to teach principles of anatomy to art students.

One of the best friends and collaborators of her husband, anthropologist Samuel Strong Dunlap, was none other than Aziz. Dauenheimer paid a visit to Howard. She expected just to have coffee with Aziz, and brainstorm how they might work together. Aziz surprised her.

"Your cadaver is waiting for you," he said.

He encouraged Dauenheimer to do the dissection herself, with help from Dunlap. All summer she cut and drew, inviting art students and colleagues to make their own sketches and sculptures. That work is in the exhibit.

The anatomist imposed one condition on the artist.

"He had dibs on the head," Dauenheimer says.

The source
Dissection puts Aziz in a philosophical mood. In the lab one recent afternoon, he grasps the left hand of a cadaver and holds it up for inspection. The flexible assemblage of bones, muscles and tendons rests in his rubber-gloved palm.

"Look at this here," he says, manipulating the sinewy thumb. "What Aristotle called the organ of organs, the opposing thumb."

His rubber fingers glide down the flayed forearm, and he lightly presses and pulls stringy cords that cause the thumb and fingers to move, puppetlike.

"The body is organized in layers of muscles," he says. "Look at the silvery tone of the tendons! Beauty is not skin-deep, it is deep-deep. . . . The cadaver opens itself up to reflection. This is where data and information lead to knowledge and insight."

Aziz is standing in the center of a vast space filled with 46 stainless steel platforms, each supporting a cadaver in a blue or white body bag and connected to black ventilation tubes.

The atmosphere is not morbid, but reverent. The bodies have been donated by the families of the dead. For six months, students work with the cadavers. Then the remains are cremated and returned to the families, or interred in a plot in Beltsville. No personal details about the cadavers are revealed to the students. The cadaver that Dauenheimer dissected and that most of the artists drew belonged to a 94-year-old woman.

Before dissection, the bodies are embalmed in a room next to the lab. The blood is drained out and preservative chemicals are pumped in. During dissection, the skin is peeled back and fat and other tissue is cleared away to reveal the purple-brown muscles and iridescent tendons.

In Aziz's view, the anatomy lab is not the end of anything, it is the beginning of something.

"The cadaver is a medical student's first patient," he says.

It is like a message from the physician who signed the death certificate to a new generation of doctors. "The novice begins training where the trained physician leaves off," he wrote in his manifesto celebrating the cadaver.

A cadaver is unwieldy. It will not fit in your laptop for later reference. Hence the need to depict and describe it -- the artist's role.

Yet Aziz stakes his worldview on this point: Just as the medical student must begin his initiation with the original flesh and guts, not with a pristine digitized reflection, so the artist -- engaged in creating yet another reflection -- must begin at the source.

Moment of insight
Pen and sketchbook in hand, Geoffrey Moore was paying close attention to the skinned and stripped lower leg and foot of the cadaver. He noticed that one of the toenails was still tinted with polish. Fuchsia. A sudden powerful consciousness of this departed life flooded his imagination.

"I had to stop drawing for a minute," recalls Moore, 21, a third-year animation student.

Then he went back to work. He was trying to solve an artistic problem. In his animation exercises at the institute, he had been having trouble with the "toe-roll" or "foot-roll" motion, when an animated character is taking strides. Now in the lab he was drawing -- and mentally absorbing -- those muscles and tendons that make that roll possible.

"We're all kind of differently shaped, but motion is universal," Moore says. He was accustomed to rendering the surfaces of things, where appearances vary so much. The cadaver lab reveals the universal in the particular. "Instead of seeing the differences, you see the similarities in our bodies," he says. "The more you learn about what's under the skin, the more you can apply that when you see someone walking down the street."

Moore's sketches of the leg and foot hang in the exhibit organized by Dauenheimer, along with the work of eight other students and professional artists.

At the exhibit opening, having recovered his composure, Aziz walks from picture to picture, pausing delightedly at each. Courtly and cheerful, he wears a sports coat and a striped tie with little skulls on it. He is joined by his wife, Barbara Dunn, an oncologist with the National Cancer Institute. They live in Mount Pleasant.

"This is fantastic," Aziz says to Charl Ann Brew, who has made an eight-inch sculpture of a gesturing cadaver whose bones and muscles are revealed to different degrees on different limbs. Aziz lingers over the head.

"You have the forehead muscle . . . the smile muscle . . . then the kissing muscle right there . . . and in order to give a French kiss, the muscle there to get deep suction. Exquisite detail!"

Brew, an art instructor, says the project has inspired her to look deeper. "I'm memorizing a different sent of muscles every quarter."

As he walks through the exhibit, Aziz cites a few lines by the Urdu poet Ghalib, about how the awareness of death adds intensity to life: "If the candle did not immolate itself in all its brilliant colors, the night would not be illuminated."

These are his most important anatomy lessons.

"We have the gift of language, the gift of making memories in words and pictures," Aziz says. "The bodies are gone, but by making these memories, we, to an extent, resurrect them. This is the antidote to death."

The exhibition--which looks not-to-be-missed--will be on view until May 8th at the Art Institute of Washington Gallery (“Gallery 1820”), 1820 N. Fort Myer Drive, Street Level, Arlington, Virginia. You can read the entire article in context on the Washington Post website by clicking here. You can see the photo gallery--from which the above image was drawn--by clicking here. You can find out more about the show by clicking here.

Image: Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post; Caption reads: "The son of amateur artists in the Indian Diaspora and growing up in Tanzania, Aziz, too, once wanted to become an artist. But his poet-carpenter father and his henna-painter mother feared there wasn't a secure future in art. So he became a zoologist and a human anatomist, and is now an associate professor at Howard. Here, Aziz spritzes a solution on a cadaver to keep it moist at the gross anatomy lab in Northwest Washington." You can see the full photo essay by clicking here.

Scienza Per Tutti (Science for All), Aldo Mazza, 1909

Scienza Per Tutti (Science for all), 1909, Cover, by graphic designer Aldo Mazza (1880-1964).

From Arte Liberty in Italia, via Elettrogenica.

"Museums, Monsters and the Moral Imagination" Lecture by Stephen Asma, Tonight!, Observatory

As discussed in this recent post, tonight professor Stephen Asma of Chicago's Columbia College will be at Observatory to deliver a much-anticipated lecture "Museums, Monsters and the Moral Imagination." This heavily-illustrated lecture will draw on the scholarship explored in two of his books--the very influential Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads and his new On Monsters--and will examine how science museums and monsters both illustrate the essential yet problematic human "urge to classify, set boundaries, and draw lines between the natural and the unnatural the human" and to "try to excavate some of the moral uses and abuses of this impulse."

Asma's written work--which has influenced my own projects immeasurably--is scholarly yet conversational, fun yet of the utmost earnestness; I am sure his lecture will strike the same balance, making this lecture truly not-to-be-missed. Both of Dr. Asma's books will be available for sale and signing at the event. Full details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Museums, Monsters and the Moral Imagination
An Illustrated lecture with Professor Stephen Asma, author of Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums and On Monsters.
Date: Tonight, Thursday, April 22
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In this illustrated lecture, professor Stephen Asma–author of the the definitive study of the natural history museum Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums–will draw upon his studies of science museums and monsters to reflect on their often hidden moral aspects. Museums are saying more about values than many people notice, and the same can be said about our cultural fascinations with monsters. The urge to classify, set boundaries, and draw lines between the natural and the unnatural are age-old impulses. In this lecture, Dr. Asma will try to excavate some of the moral uses and abuses of this impulse.

Stephen T. Asma is the author of Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums (Oxford) and more recently On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford). He is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago and Fellow of the LAS Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture at Columbia. You can find out more about him at his website, www.stephenasma.com.

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To find out more about Asma's fantastic books, click here and here.

Image: From The Secret Museum; Pathological Cabinet, the Museum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. © Joanna Ebenstein

"The Rogue Taxidermy Kunstkammer," The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles

This just in from Congress for Curious People participant and Friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy Robert Marbury; if I was in the greater Los Angeles area, I'd surely be there:

The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists proudly presents The Rogue Taxidermy Kunstkammer
Our contemporary culture has seen a growing interest in taxidermy fueled by the internet, ambivalence about the food industry, and concerns over animal extinction. The representation of animal form is wide-ranging, and this exhibition presents the first major group show of Rogue Taxidermy. Rogue Taxidermy, a mixed-media art utilizing taxidermy materials, is more closely related to Surrealism than to mainstream taxidermy. Ranging from the macabre to the sublime, this exhibition explores the Borgesian imaginary made real.

Featuring:
SCOTT A. A. BIBUS
SARINA BREWER
MELISSA DIXON
ENRIQUE GOMEZ DE MOLINA
JESSICA JOSLIN
JEANIE M
ROBERT MARBURY
ELIZABETH MCGRATH
ALAN WADZINSKI
BROOKE WESTON
MIRMY WINN

The Show runs May 7th - May 30th

OPENING RECEPTION
Friday May 7th, 8pm-11pm

SQUIRREL MASTERCLASS/GAMEFEED
This event will include a taxidermy demo, followed by Squirrel Chili. A vegan "Mock-Squirrel" Chili will also be available. Sponsored by Schmaltz Brewing Company.
Saturday May 8th 6pm-10pm

LA LUZ DE JESUS
4633 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90027
Phone: 323-666_7667
www.laluzdejesus.com

* All members adhere to a strict ethics charter. Only animals procured in an ethical and environmentally responsible manner were used, and none of the animals were killed for the purpose of this artwork.
* A portion of the proceeds of this show will be given to a local wildlife rehabilitation center.

For more information, check out the La Luz de Jesus website by clicking here. You can find out more about The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists by clicking here. Click on image to see larger version.

The Dance of Death, 1919, Attributed to Josef Fenneker

THE DANCE OF DEATH. 1919.
ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEF FENNEKER (1895-1956)
54 1/2x41 inches, 138 1/2x104 cm.
Condition B+: restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; minor restoration in margins.
Fenneker designed over three hundred movie posters. His recognizable style drew largely on German Expressionism combined with a flair of aesthetic decadence. Written by Fritz Lang, Totentanz is considered by The Internet Movie Database to be a "lost film [in which] a beautiful dancer's sexual allure is used by an evil cripple to entice men to their deaths. Falling in love with one of the potential victims, she is told by the cripple that he will set her free if her lover, actually a murderer himself, survives and escapes a bizarre labyrinthe which runs beneath the cripple's house" (www.imdb.com). Even without a signature, this poster is clearly the work of Fenneker. Although another image by Fenneker for this film exists, this particular version is previously unrecorded.
Estimate $2,000-3,000

"The Dance of Death" is one of many beautiful posters you will find in the upcoming modernist poster sale at Swann Galleries Auction House. You can find out more about the sale--which begins at 1:30 PM on May 3--and view the other lots by clicking here. Another favorite modernist poster recently blogged about here will also be available at the auction.

Via Random Index. Click on image to see larger version.

"The Silken Web: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946," Mel Gordon Lecture at Observatory, Tomorrow April 20th

Tomorrow night! At Observatory!

The Silken Web: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946
An illustrated lecture by Professor Mel Gordon, author of Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Wiemar Berlin
Date: Tuesday, April 20
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
In tonight’s illustrated lecture, Professor Mel Gordon–author of Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin and Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror–will present a graphic look at the brothel worlds of interwar Paris. Each of the 221 registered maisons closes–French for “closed house”–had its own unique attractions for its specialized clientele: theatricalized sex, live music, pornographic entertainments, aphrodisiac restaurants, even American-style playrooms and wife-friendly lounges for the customers’ families and bored mistresses. Tonight, have some wine and partake in authentic French culture and their Greatest Generation, complements of Mel Gordon and Observatory.

Mel Gordon is the author of Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, and many other books. Voluptuous Panic was the first in-depth and illustrated book on the topic of erotic Weimar; The lavish tome was praised by academics and inspired the establishment of eight neo-Weimar nightclubs as well as the Dresden Dolls and a Marilyn Manson album. Now, Mel Gordon is completing a companion volume for Feral House Press, entitled The Silken Web: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To find out more about Gordon's books, click here and here.

"Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads" Book and Lecture by Stephen Asma, Thursday April 22, Observatory

People often ask me how I first became interested in the topics that would lead me to launch the Morbid Anatomy blog and related projects, such as The Secret Museum and Anatomical Theatre exhibitions. When I am asked this question, I usually rattle off a few of my major serendipitous inspirations: my first trip to Europe and the death-symbolism-packed churches and osteo-architecture I was surprised to find there; The gift of a Mütter Museum Calendar for my birthday one year from a well-meaning friend; And, last but never least, the discovery of Stephen Asma's wonderful, incredible, perfect book Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums.

Asma's book has had such a profound impact on my work that it is difficult to exaggerate its importance. The book is a conversationally toned yet extremely scholarly "natural history of natural history museums," covering, with wit and intelligence, the history of specimens preparation and the artists and pioneers of the medium, the evolution of the museum from Cabinet to comparative anatomy collection to today's science museum, the history and follies of taxonomy, and what the drive to order the world reveals about human nature. Over the course of the book, Asma introduces us to a number of incredible museums I have now--inspired largely by this book!--visited and photographed many times, such as London's Hunterian Museum and Paris' Hall of Comparative Anatomy, and all this in an accessible, enthralling, humorous, and fascinating way.

This is why I am so extremely delighted that Stephen Asma will be visiting Observatory this Thursday, April 22, to deliver his much-anticipated lecture "Museums, Monsters and the Moral Imagination." This heavily-illustrated lecture will draw on the scholarship of both Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads and new book, On Monsters, to examine how science museums and monsters both illustrate the essential yet problematic human "urge to classify, set boundaries, and draw lines between the natural and the unnatural the human" and to "try to excavate some of the moral uses and abuses of this impulse."

Both of Dr. Asma's books will be available for sale and signing at the event. Full details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Museums, Monsters and the Moral Imagination
An Illustrated lecture with Professor Stephen Asma, author of Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums and On Monsters.
Date: Thursday, April 22
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In this illustrated lecture, professor Stephen Asma–author of the the definitive study of the natural history museum Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums–will draw upon his studies of science museums and monsters to reflect on their often hidden moral aspects. Museums are saying more about values than many people notice, and the same can be said about our cultural fascinations with monsters. The urge to classify, set boundaries, and draw lines between the natural and the unnatural are age-old impulses. In this lecture, Dr. Asma will try to excavate some of the moral uses and abuses of this impulse.

Stephen T. Asma is the author of Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: the Culture and History of Natural History Museums (Oxford) and more recently On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford). He is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago and Fellow of the LAS Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture at Columbia. You can find out more about him at his website, www.stephenasma.com.

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. To find out more about Asma's fantastic books, click here and here.

Image: From The Secret Museum; Pathological Cabinet, the Museum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. © Joanna Ebenstein

"The Congress for Curious People," Epic 2-Day Symposium Begins Tomorrow!!!

Click on image or here to download full-sized broadside as seen above. Prints up to 11 X 17.

Morbid Anatomy and Observatory are pleased to present, in conjunction with the Coney Island Museum, "The Congress for Curious People!"

Tomorrow, Saturday April 17th, our 2-day open-to-the public conference will begin at 11:00 AM at the Coney Island Museum. The conference will examine, in a series of thematic panel sessions, curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. Participants will include artist/collector Joe Coleman, the Freakatorium's Johnny Fox, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy Melissa Milgrom, curator of the incomparable Dream Anatomy Mike Sappol, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America Andrea Stulman Dennett and Obscura Antiques and Oddities' Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn. See below for full details and schedule.

Also on view will be the "Collectors Cabinet"on view for the entirety of the event, showcasing astounding objects held in private collections, and, at partner space Observatory, "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts.

Full details follow: Hope very, very much to see you there!!!

CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE 2-DAY SYMPOSIUM

Date: Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th
Location: Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn ADMISSION: $25 for full weekend admission
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Observatory with Coney Island USA
The Congress for Curious People is a 2-day symposium exploring education and spectacle, collectors of curiosities, historical fairground displays and more, in conjunction with The Coney Island Museum. The symposium will feature panels of humanities scholars discussing with the audience the intricacies of collecting, the history of ethnographic display, the interface of spectacle and education, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Also on view in the museum will be "The Collector's Cabinet," an installation of astounding artifacts held in private collections. In conjunction with the events at the Coney Island Museum, Observatory's Gallery space will host "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world.

The Congress for Curious People will serve as an academic counterpoint to Coney Island's Congress of Curious Peoples, which Coney Island USA has convened since 2007 at Sideshows by the Seashore. In the past, the Congress has included performances by artists like Joe Coleman and Harley Newman, feats of strength, and world-record breaking attempts, among others. You can find out more about the Congress of Curious Peoples at www.coneyisland.com/congress.shtml.

Saturday, April 17th 11 AM-12:30 PM – Education and Spectacle in 19th and 20th Century Amusements, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Eva Åhrén, author of Death, Modernity, and the Body : Sweden 1870-1940
Andrea Stulman Dennett, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
Amy Herzog, author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Kathy Maher, Executive Director of the Barnum Museum
Moderated by Betsy Bradley, New York Public Library

LUNCH 2-3:30 PM– Cabinets of Curiosity: Collecting Curiosities in the 21st Century, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Joe Coleman, collector and artist
Johnny Fox, collector, performer, founder of The Freakatorium
Evan Michelson, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Mike Zohn, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Moderated by Aaron Beebe, Director of the Coney Island Museum

4-5:30 PM – Freaks and Monsters: The Politics of Bodily Display, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Mike Chemers, author of Staging Stigma: A Critical History of the American Freak Show
Nadja Durbach, author of Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Michael Sappol, Historian of the National Library of Medicine and author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America
Moderated by Jennifer Miller, Bearded Lady and founder of Circus Amok

6-8 PM Drinks and light fare

Sunday, April 18th 12-2 PM – A History of Cultural Display in World’s Fairs and Sideshows, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Lucian Gomoll, University of California at Santa Cruz
Alison Griffiths, author of Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn of the Century Visual Culture
Barbara Mathé, Archivist, American Museum of Natural History
Moderated by Aaron Glass, author of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural Biography and In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting

2 PM – Closing remarks

RELATED EXHIBITIONS

The Secret Museum
An exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts, by Joanna Ebenstein, co-founder of Observatory and creator of Morbid Anatomy.
Location: Observatory
Opening Party: Saturday, April 10, 7-10; on view On view from April 10th-May 16th, 3-6 Thursday and Friday, 12-6 Saturday and Sunday
Admission: Free

The Collectors Cabinet
An exhibition which will showcase astounding objects held in private collections, including artifacts featured in Joanna Ebenstein's Private Cabinet photo series of 2009. Featured cabinetists include Curious Expeditions and Observatory's Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, and Morbid Anatomy and Observatory's Joanna Ebenstein.
LOCATION: * Coney Island Museum, Brooklyn

Image: "Femme à Barbe, Musée Orfila.Courtesy of Paris Descartes University.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples, and to get directions, click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside.

Charles Wilson Peale and the Birth of the American Museum, Coney Island Museum, Tonight!!!

Tonight at Coney! The final lecture in the Congress for Curious People series; tomorrow the symposium--as detailed in this recent post--begins! Hope to see you there!

Charles Wilson Peale and the Birth of the American Museum
An Illustrated Presentation by Samuel Strong Dunlap, PhD, Descendant of Charles Wilson Peale
Date: Friday, April 16th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Long time historian and editor of the Peale Family Papers Dr. Lillian B. Miller (now deceased) described Charles Willson Peale as a true renaissance man. Peale is perhaps best remembered today as the founder of America’s first cabinet-of-curiosity like museum–the Philadelphia Museum (later the Peale Museum)–which housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens and can be viewed in the image above. Famously, Peale’s museum also pioneered the habitat group–or natural history diorama–an art form memorably perfected by such museums as the American Museum of Natural History and Chicago’s Field Museum in the early 20th Century.

In this illustrated lecture, we will learn about Peale the museologist, and examine how his museological work continuously overlap with his inventive, artistic, scientific, literary and exploratory interests. Peale was a friend or acquaintance with most of the military, scientific, diplomatic and foreign individuals who played significant roles in our revolutionary war and the early growth of our democracy.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples--including nightly performances and the epic opening night party--click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside. For information about the Coney Island Museum--including address and directions--click here.

Image: The Artist in His Museum (self-portrait, 1822)

"A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste," An Illustrated Presentation By Dr. Pat Morris, Congress for Curious People, Coney Island Museum

Tonight is night four of the Congress for Curious People! To celebrate, come to the Coney Island Museum at 7:00 PM to see Pat Morris--British biologist, collector, and self-publisher of several books on taxidermy--as he parses the world of taxidermy and asks, in a heavily illustrated lecture "is taxidermy art, science, or bad taste?"

Pat Morris is a specialist on taxidermy of all sorts, and has literally written the book on Walter Potter, my favorite Victorian taxidermist, who's incredible tableaux "The Kitten Tea Party" and "The Death of Cock Robin (top and third down, respectively) you see above. Tonight his lecture will focus on the work and curiosity collection of Mr. Potter; he will also be selling (and signing, if you wish!) his difficult-to-come-by and amazing heavily-illustrated books about Potter's work, life, and curiosity collection. Also, there will be half-price drinks at the bar till 7!

Do you need further enticing to get you down to Coney Island tonight?

Full details follow; hope to see you there!

A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste
An Illustrated Presentation By Dr. Pat Morris, Royal Holloway, University of London
Date: Thursday, April 15th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Should taxidermy be viewed as art, science, or bad taste? And why is it so interesting? Dr. Pat Morris’ illustrated lecture “A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste” will explore these topics and more. His talk will range over the history of stuffed animals, considering how a small-time taxidermist business operated in the 19th century and exploring the many diverse and amusing uses of taxidermy and the taxidermist’s products ranging from major museum exhibits to stuffed pets, hunting trophies, animal furniture, kitten weddings (see above, Walter Potter, circa 1890s), frogs eating spaghetti and squirrels playing cards. He will discuss in detail the work of anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter and his eponymous “Museum of Curiosities,” as detailed in his own lavishly illustrated book on that topic, which will be available for sale at the lecture.

Dr. Pat Morris is a retired staff member of Royal Holloway College (University of London), where he taught biology undergraduates and supervised research on mammal ecology. In that capacity he has published many books and scientific papers and featured regularly in radio and TV broadcasts. The history of taxidermy has been a lifelong hobby interest and he has published academic papers and several books on the subject. With his wife Mary he has travelled widely, including most of Europe and the USA, seeking interesting taxidermy specimens and stories. They live in England where their house is home to the largest collection and archive of historical taxidermy in Britain.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples--including nightly performances and the epic opening night party--click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside. For information about the Coney Island Museum--including address and directions--click here.

A Brief History of Automata, An Illustrated Lecture and Demonstration by Mike Zohn, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, TONIGHT! Coney Island Museum

Tonight is night three of the Congress for Curious People! To celebrate, come to the Coney Island Museum at 7:00 PM to see Mike Zohn--of the inimitable Obscura Antiques and Oddities-- as he demonstrates and explains the workings of his 19th Century bird-taxidermy automaton, which aficionados might remember from last Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest; (see bottom image to jog your memory).

To accompany the demonstration, Mike will give an illustrated lecture about the fascinating, surprising, and sometimes nefarious history of automata. And--added bonus--there will also be half-price drinks at the bar till 7! Full details follow; hope to see you there!

A Brief History of Automata
An Illustrated Lecture and Demonstration by Mike Zohn, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Date: Wednesday, April 14th (Tonight!)
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
In this illustrated lecture, Obscura Antique and Oddities‘ Mike Zohn will demonstrate his 19th Century taxidermy automata, as featured in last year’s Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest. He will explain its curious mechanisms, and, in an illustrated lecture, will introduce us to the history of these fascinating uncanny machines, tracing their trajectory from tools of religious coercion to prince’s plaything to Disney’s imagineering experiments.

Mike Zohn is co-proprietor of Obscura Antique and Oddities. He fixes automata in his spare time.

For information about the Coney Island Museum--including address and directions--click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People--under whose auspices this event is included--click here. To find out more about the larger Congress of Curious Peoples click here. Click here to download a hi-res copy of the broadside invitation.

Bottom image: Mike Zohn with his Bird Automaton at the Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest; from the Flickr page of tenebrouskate; click here to see more.

"The Brading Collection of Taxidermy, Waxworks, Costume and Similar Items," Duke's Auction House, Dorset, April 13th (Today!)

From the outside, it's an unremarkable industrial warehouse, home to Duke's Auction House. But the stench of turpentine marks it out from the other buildings on the Grove Industrial Estate in Dorchester, Dorset. It's the first clue that inside lurks a haven of Victorian taxidermy.

Step in, and you'll see a Bengali tiger on its hind legs, 8ft tall, lunging claws-first (and canines first) towards you. Behind him is a peacock, glorious tail splayed behind it.

To the right are three zebras, a camel, baby rhinoceros and seven lions, the lioness twisted on the ground, sinking her incisors into a bloodied antelope. All in all, there are 250 animals, many of which are the treasures of an eccentric 19th-century professor and explorer.

Elsewhere are grotesque figures: shrunken monkey heads on spikes, Siamese lambs conjoined at the head, a velvet coffin with the body of a 16-year-old Congolese boy (complete with an elephant's head stitched to his corpse), and dozens of glass-eyed waxworks with liver- spotted skin or daggers plunging into their chests.

Oh, and a blue dress once worn by Princess Diana.

Today's auction--marking the dispersal of the Brading Experience, a former museum on the Isle of Wight in England and handled by Duke's auction house in Dorset--will also include scores of waxworks featured at the museum for decades, among them "a waxwork of a whitehaired tramp wearing loose fitting rags" and "a half-length waxwork of a torso with a knife plunged into his chest," not to mention the epic taxidermy you see above, and much, much more.

The above quote and images are from the Daily Mail, which featured a well-illustrated article about the auction; You can read the full article--"Yetis, unicorns and even flying kittens: Inside the worlds zaniest zoo"--by clicking here. You can view the entire catalog of sale items--prepare to be astounded!--here. You can find out more about Duke's auction house by clicking here.

Wish I lived in England right now...

P.S. If this topic interests you, then you won't want to miss tonight's lecture by Robert Marbury at the Coney Island Museum, entitled "A Rogue’s Approach to Stuffing It: Taxidermy in Contemporary Pop, Art and Sub-Cultures" at 7:00 PM! Click here for details.

Congress for Curious People: Lectures Begin Tomorrow Night at the Coney Island Museum!

Click on image or here to download full-sized broadside as seen above. Prints up to 11 X 17.

The "Congress for Curious People"--as detailed in this recent post--will launch tomorrow with Evan Michelson's illustrated meditation on "The Saddest Object in the World" and continue through the week with nightly lectures on topics ranging from taxidermy to automata to the first American museum. On the following Saturday and Sunday, we will be hosting an epic 2-day symposium examining the collecting of curiosities, the history of ethnographic display and the interface of spectacle and education in 19th and 2oth Century amusements, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Full details for all events follow.

Important Note: All events will be co-presented by Observatory and Morbid Anatomy but will take place at The Coney Island Museum rather than Observatory. Half-price drinks till 7 will help make it worth-your-while for a little extra commute, as will the amazing lectures and symposium, not to mention the ambiance of the museum as lecture space. I will be in attendance at every lecture; very much hope to see you there!

LECTURE WEEK AT THE CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE



The Saddest Object in the World
An Illustrated Meditation by Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Date: Monday, April 12th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
“The Saddest Object in the World” is a meditation on one particular artifact; an exercise in Proustian involuntary memory, aesthetic critique, and philosophical bargaining.

Sometimes objects have consequences.

Evan Michelson is an antiques dealer, lecturer, accumulator and aesthete; she tirelessly indulges a lifelong pursuit of all things obscure and melancholy. She currently lives in another place and time.



A Rogue's Approach to Stuffing It: Taxidermy in Contemporary Pop, Art and Sub-Cultures
Robert Marbury of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists
Date: Tuesday, April 13th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
ave you seen a rise in taxidermy in the world around you? What could be causing this resurgence? A Rogue’s Approach to Taxidermy will identify prominent practitioners of natural history art; discuss popular trends in preservation, presentation and representation; and delve into the sub-culture of artistic taxidermy. Robert will also discuss the highs and lows of running a taxidermy art group, and offer suggestions on which emails to return and who to not let into your house.

Robert Marbury received his BA in Anthropology from Connecticut College and a post-Bac from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He is the co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. Robert is currently curating a Rogue Taxidermy show which will run from May 7th to May 30th at La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles. He lives and works in Brooklyn.




A Brief History of Automata
An Illustrated Lecture and Demonstration by Mike Zohn, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Date: Wednesday, April 14th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
In this illustrated lecture, Obscura Antique and Oddities‘ Mike Zohn will demonstrate his 19th Century taxidermy automata, as featured in last year’s Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest. He will explain its curious mechanisms, and, in an illustrated lecture, will introduce us to the history of these fascinating uncanny machines, tracing their trajectory from tools of religious coercion to prince’s plaything to Disney’s imagineering experiments.
Mike Zohn is co-proprietor of Obscura Antique and Oddities. He fixes automata in his spare time.



A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste
An Illustrated Presentation By Dr. Pat Morris, Royal Holloway, University of London
Date: Thursday, April 15th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Should taxidermy be viewed as art, science, or bad taste? And why is it so interesting? Dr. Pat Morris’ illustrated lecture “A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste” will explore these topics and more. His talk will range over the history of stuffed animals, considering how a small-time taxidermist business operated in the 19th century and exploring the many diverse and amusing uses of taxidermy and the taxidermist’s products ranging from major museum exhibits to stuffed pets, hunting trophies, animal furniture, kitten weddings (see above, Walter Potter, circa 1890s), frogs eating spaghetti and squirrels playing cards. He will discuss in detail the work of anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter and his eponymous “Museum of Curiosities,” as detailed in his own lavishly illustrated book on that topic, which will be available for sale at the lecture.

Dr. Pat Morris is a retired staff member of Royal Holloway College (University of London), where he taught biology undergraduates and supervised research on mammal ecology. In that capacity he has published many books and scientific papers and featured regularly in radio and TV broadcasts. The history of taxidermy has been a lifelong hobby interest and he has published academic papers and several books on the subject. With his wife Mary he has travelled widely, including most of Europe and the USA, seeking interesting taxidermy specimens and stories. They live in England where their house is home to the largest collection and archive of historical taxidermy in Britain.


















Charles Wilson Peale and the Birth of the American Museum
An Illustrated Presentation by Samuel Strong Dunlap, PhD, Descendant of Charles Wilson Peale
Date: Friday, April 16th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Long time historian and editor of the Peale Family Papers Dr. Lillian B. Miller (now deceased) described Charles Willson Peale as a true renaissance man. Peale is perhaps best remembered today as the founder of America’s first cabinet-of-curiosity like museum–the Philadelphia Museum (later the Peale Museum)–which housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens and can be viewed in the image above. Famously, Peale’s museum also pioneered the habitat group–or natural history diorama–an art form memorably perfected by such museums as the American Museum of Natural History and Chicago’s Field Museum in the early 20th Century.

In this illustrated lecture, we will learn about Peale the museologist, and examine how his museological work continuously overlap with his inventive, artistic, scientific, literary and exploratory interests. Peale was a friend or acquaintance with most of the military, scientific, diplomatic and foreign individuals who played significant roles in our revolutionary war and the early growth of our democracy.

CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE 2-DAY SYMPOSIUM

Date: Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th
Location: Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn ADMISSION: $25 for full weekend admission
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Observatory with Coney Island USA
The Congress for Curious People is a 2-day symposium exploring education and spectacle, collectors of curiosities, historical fairground displays and more, in conjunction with The Coney Island Museum. The symposium will feature panels of humanities scholars discussing with the audience the intricacies of collecting, the history of ethnographic display, the interface of spectacle and education, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Also on view in the museum will be "The Collector's Cabinet," an installation of astounding artifacts held in private collections. In conjunction with the events at the Coney Island Museum, Observatory's Gallery space will host "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world.

The Congress for Curious People will serve as an academic counterpoint to Coney Island's Congress of Curious Peoples, which Coney Island USA has convened since 2007 at Sideshows by the Seashore. In the past, the Congress has included performances by artists like Joe Coleman and Harley Newman, feats of strength, and world-record breaking attempts, among others. You can find out more about the Congress of Curious Peoples at www.coneyisland.com/congress.shtml.

Saturday, April 17th 11 AM-12:30 PM – Education and Spectacle in 19th and 20th Century Amusements, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Eva Åhrén, author of Death, Modernity, and the Body : Sweden 1870-1940
Andrea Stulman Dennett, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
Amy Herzog, author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Kathy Maher, Executive Director of the Barnum Museum
Moderated by Betsy Bradley, New York Public Library

LUNCH 2-3:30 PM– Cabinets of Curiosity: Collecting Curiosities in the 21st Century, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Joe Coleman, collector and artist
Johnny Fox, collector, performer, founder of The Freakatorium
Evan Michelson, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Mike Zohn, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Moderated by Aaron Beebe, Director of the Coney Island Museum

4-5:30 PM – Freaks and Monsters: The Politics of Bodily Display, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Mike Chemers, author of Staging Stigma: A Critical History of the American Freak Show
Nadja Durbach, author of Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Michael Sappol, Historian of the National Library of Medicine and author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America
Moderated by Jennifer Miller, Bearded Lady and founder of Circus Amok

6-8 PM Drinks and light fare

Sunday, April 18th 12-2 PM – A History of Cultural Display in World’s Fairs and Sideshows, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Lucian Gomoll, University of California at Santa Cruz
Alison Griffiths, author of Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn of the Century Visual Culture
Barbara Mathé, Archivist, American Museum of Natural History
Moderated by Aaron Glass, author of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural Biography and In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting

2 PM – Closing remarks



RELATED EXHIBITIONS

The Secret Museum
An exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts, by Joanna Ebenstein, co-founder of Observatory and creator of Morbid Anatomy.
Location: Observatory
Opening Party: Saturday, April 10, 7-10; on view On view from April 10th-May 16th, 3-6 Thursday and Friday, 12-6 Saturday and Sunday
Admission: Free

The Collectors Cabinet
An exhibition which will showcase astounding objects held in private collections, including artifacts featured in Joanna Ebenstein's Private Cabinet photo series of 2009. Featured cabinetists include Curious Expeditions and Observatory's Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, and Morbid Anatomy and Observatory's Joanna Ebenstein.
LOCATION: * Coney Island Museum, Brooklyn

Image: "Femme à Barbe, Musée Orfila.Courtesy of Paris Descartes University.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples--including nightly performances and the epic opening night party--click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside. For information about the Coney Island Museum--including address and directions--click here.