Morbid Anatomy

Observatory’s Lunar-Themed 3rd Anniversary Fundraiser Party, Sponsored by Le Fée Absinthe, Saturday February 18th

2012-02-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

I would like to cordially invite each and every one of you to our upcoming lunar-themed Observatory anniversary/fundraiser party! A few things you should know: The charming Lord Whimsy will be on hand to MC! Giveaways will be provided by Kikkerland! Libations served up compliments of La Fée Absinthe! Viewings of The Midnight Archive! And music, too.

Full details follow. Hope to see you there!

Observatory’s Lunar-Themed 3rd Anniversary Fundraiser Party, Sponsored by Le Fée Absinthe!
Date: Saturday, February 18th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $20

Yes, friends, we're over the moon about our 3rd Anniversary! Come celebrate with us, and help support your favorite interdisciplinarian art, science, & occult event space.
Check out our art show, Lunation: Art on the Moon, and then trip out to a Moon Phantasmagoria show by VJ Fuzzy Bastard. We'll also be screening episodes from the Midnight Archive, a show featuring your favorite Observatory masterminds.

Libations will be provided courtesy of La Fée Absinthe.

There will also be:

The luminous MC Lord Whimsy!

Stellar giveaways courtesy of Kikkerland!

Out-of-this-world raffle prizes, including:

Gift certificates from the scrumptious SweetWolf's and the delectable Palo Santo!

Moonrise Perfume from Herbal Alchemy!

Audiobooks from Hachette!

Occult Book Set including an autographed copy of Mitch Horowitz's Occult America (Bantam), and Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Tarcher/Penguin)!

Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies with accompanying occult music CD!

Lunavision Ritual Tea Set from Rebis Remedies!

And so! much! more! We look forward to seeing you there.

More info can be found here.

Head Composed of Writhing Écorché Figures Composed in the Manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Wellcome Collection

2012-01-31T15:39:00.004-05:00

"Recently conserved painting of a head composed of writhing écorché figures, composed in the manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (right: Wellcome Library no. 44576i)." Click on image to see much larger, more detailed version.

Via The Wellcome Library blog.

Amazing Animated Gifs of a Circa 1920s Coney Island, from "Speedy," 1928

2012-01-31T15:05:00.002-05:00

Animated gifs created from he nighttime Coney Island sequence featured the 1928 Harold Lloyd vehicle Speedy. You can watch the clip from which it is is drawn by clicking here.

Synopisis of the film, from IMDB:

Speedy (1928)
"Speedy" loses his job as a soda-jerk, then spends the day with his girl at Coney Island. He then becomes a cab driver and delivers Babe Ruth to Yankee Stadium, where he stays to see the game. When the railroad tries to run the last horse-drawn trolley (operated by his girl's grandfather) out of business, "Speedy" organizes the neighborhood oldtimers to thwart their scheme. Written by Herman Seifer

Found here.

Die Mysteriosen Catakomben, Poster, Late 19th Century?

2012-01-31T14:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know the story on this, but I absolutely love it. Found here.

Automatons in the News AND at the Airport!

2012-01-31T09:09:00.000-05:00

Our buddy Jere Ryder of the Guinness Collection of automata at the Morris Museum just forwarded me a CBS video that features his automata collection, a truly enchanting automaton at the Franklin Institute in Philly (which, we are informed, inspired the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret), and provides a very engaging history of the craft to boot. Highly recommended! To view, simply press the play button above.

Also, for the automaton lovers among you who happen to be passing through the San Francisco International Airport international terminal before June 2012, you can go check out some automatons on display between flights! Click here for more on that. More on the Morris Museum collection can be found here.

Thanks very much to Jere Ryder for sending these links along.

Upcoming Morbid Anatomy Presents Events: "Granny Dump Mountain" and "Buried Alive!" A Matchbox Theatre Exploring the 19th C Fear of Being Buried Alive

2012-01-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

Coming up tomorrow night as part of Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory, we have the illustrated story of Justin Nobel's journey in search of the truth behind the Japanese concept of obasute-yama or Granny Dump Mountain. Coming up next week, we have the eagerly anticipated "Buried Alive," a miniature matchbox theatre performance (pictured above) which describes itself as a "frightfully funny exploration of our fear of being buried alive and of the curious phenomenon of 19th Century 'waiting mortuaries.'"

Full details follow for both events. Hope to see you at one of both!

The Search for Granny-Dump Mountain
Illustrated lecture by Journalist Justin Nobel
Date: Thursday, January 26th
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

When elders in rural Japan reached age 70--or so an ancient legend would have it--their sons would carry them to the top of a holy mountain and leave them to die of exposure and starvation. Granny-dump mountain, or obasute-yama, was seen as a way to trim the population and make way for the next generation in cold mountain villages where food was short and winter was long. It is referenced by the obscure eleventh century diarist Lady Sarashina, master haiku poet Matsuo Basho and a 1983 Palme d’Or winning film, yet most anthropologists doubt the practice ever actually existed.

Intrigued by this story, journalist Justin Nobel took to the road to see if he could get to the bottom of this enigmatic legend. His travels ultimately led him to a tiny town in northern Japan haunted by cannibalistic mountain men and shape shifting sprites. After scouring the countryside for clues he came to a shocking conclusion: the legend was very much alive, right in the heart of Tokyo.

Tonight join Morbid Anatomy and Justin Nobel to hear the story of his search for the elusive Granny-Dump Mountain.

Justin Nobel is a freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in TIME, Popular Mechanics, Audubon, Guernica and Meatpaper. His essay, The Last Inuit of Quebec, was recently included in Best American Travel Writing 2011 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). He pens a blog called Digital Dying for the funeral information website funeralwise.com and another called the Absurd Adventurer where he sits for hours in one New York City spot. He lives in Blissville.
Image: A plaque commemorating Granny-dump Mountain in the northern Japan town of Tono. (Photo by Justin Nobel)

PERFORMANCE: Buried Alive! A Matchbox Theatre
A matchbox theatre performance by Deborah Kaufmann
Dates: Thursday, February 2nd AND Friday February 3rd
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $12
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Audience limited to 25 people per show; first come, first served

“The way each box reveals its tiny inhabitants is entrancing and Deborah Kaufmann… is sweetly enchanting.” – The Village Voice

“Depicted with comic deadpan perversity… a wink and raised eyebrow of an entertainment.” – www.womanaroundtown.com

Buried Alive! a matchbox theatre, is a frightfully funny exploration of our fear of being buried alive and of the curious phenomenon of 19th Century “waiting mortuaries.” Based on historical and medical facts. Tiny, intimate and interactive, full of dreadful discoveries for an adult audience.

BURIED ALIVE! is performed on a tabletop and is constructed entirely in and of matchboxes. It takes advantage of the unique qualities of these tiny stages. Images and characters slide out, slide through, pop up, and drop out of the matchboxes. A merry eccentric matron is your guide. The Nineteenth Century is evoked, but BURIED ALIVE! is creatively anachronistic and plays with scale.

Buried Alive! was inspired by an article entitled, “Pediatric Brain Death,” found in a hospital resident on-call room, and by research into the myths, truths, history and ethics surrounding the true moment of biological death.

Conceived, constructed and performed by Deborah Kaufmann. Kaufmann has delighted audiences in Europe, Australia and across North America with original physical comedy. This year she celebrates 25 years with the Big Apple Circus Clown Care program, where she brings the joy of circus to hospitalized children, their families and caregivers. She has been called, “by no means merely cute ... a performer to be trusted, enjoyed and seen” ---nytheatre.com

To be alerted to future events, "like" Morbid Anatomy on Facebook by clicking here or sign up for the Observatory mailer by clicking here. You can find directions to Observatory here and more on all events here. You can find out more about these events by clicking here.

Image: Photo by Jim Moore, 2011

"WAX": Episode 9 of The Midnight Archive, on the Uncanny Waxworks of Artist Sigrid Sarda

2012-01-19T09:33:00.003-05:00

A new episode of The Midnight Archive--the web-based documentary series centered around Observatory--has just been uploaded and can be viewed above. In this episode--entitled "Wax"--we learn about the uncanny waxworks of artist Sigrid Sarda, visit her amazing home studio/private museum, and watch as she launches into a new piece using Midnight Archive director Ronni Thoma s as model/subject; fascinating discussions touching on the history of wax, death, magic and The Uncanny ensue. This is one of my favorite Midnight Archives thus far; not to be missed!

The creator of The Midnight Archive--Film-maker and many-time Observatory lecturer Ronni Thoma s--says about this episode:

EPISODE 09 - WAX - A long standing obsession of mine has always been wax... I am honored to have someone I genuinely consider a true artist as part of our series - Ms. Sigrid Sarda. From our first meeting I knew we'd have a ton of things to talk about. The charmingly perverse Sarda has taught herself the ancient art of sculpting in wax, and it is every bit as creepy and interesting as you might expect. Her home (where we shot the episode) - is LITTERED with her creations. Its a scene out of one of my all time favorite films "Tourist Trap" minus a creepy cross-dressing Chuck Connors. Take a look at the art behind the wax. Its truly a fascinating medium. And Sig is truly a fascinating artist. Stay tuned, as she is working on a maze called Welcome To Hegemony which is sort of a super speed 'haunted' maze which will feature many of her wax friends - HOPEFULLY including the wax figure she is making of yours truly! Enjoy!

For more on the series, to see former episodes, or to sign up for the mailing list and thus be alerted to future uploads, visit The Midnight Archive website by clicking here. You can also "like" it on Facebook--and be alerted in this way--by clicking here. You can find out more about the amazing work of Sigrid Sarda by clicking here.

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory Travels to Manhattan with 3-Part "Body as Funhouse Mirror" Lecture Series!

2012-01-17T18:34:00.002-05:00

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory is coming to The Big City (New York City, that is), with 3 lectures to be hosted by the Cornelia Street Café, care of our good buddies (and co-Observatarians) The Hollow Earth Society . The theme of the lecture grouping is "Body as Funhouse Mirror," and features past favorite Observatory speakers Amy Herzog, Mark Dery and Sharon Shattuck.

Full details on the series can be found below; hope to see you at one or all three of these great encore lectures!

The Pornographic Arcades Project: Adaptation, Automation, and the Evolution of Times Square (1965-1975)
Amy Herzog
Date: Sunday, January 29
Time: 6:00 PM
Admission: $10

Herzog's talk challenges our notion of what makes a city (sex)—and who constitutes a voyeur: Motion picture “peeping” machines have existed since the birth of cinema, and were often stocked with salacious titles. Public arcades devoted to pornographic peep booths only began to appear in the late 1960s, however, although once established, they proliferated wildly, becoming ubiquitous features in urban landscapes... The Pornographic Arcades Project is a work-in-progress, asking what a study of pornographic peep show arcades might reveal about the cultural imaginary of the late twentieth century.

Amy Herzog is associate professor of media studies and coordinator of the film studies program at Queens College, CUNY. She is the author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film. She recently curated "Peeps," an exhibition at The James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center, on the dialogue between pornographic peep loops and contemporary art practices.
(qc-cuny.academia.edu/AmyHerzog)

Parasites: A User's Guide
Sharon Shattuck
Date: Sunday, February 26
Time: 6:00 PM
Admission: $10

Parasites challenges the notions of body, friend, inside, and out—and it’s funny! (Not to mention a tad horrific...) The word “parasite” comes with loads of vile connotations, but in nature, nothing is purely good or evil. In the 27-minute experimental documentary Parasites: A User’s Guide, Shattuck embarks on a journey to decode some of the most misunderstood creatures on earth. The dramatic rise in autoimmune diseases, asthma, and allergies since the turn of the last century has confounded scientists, but some researchers think they have uncovered the key to controlling the skyrocketing rates: tiny parasitic worms called helminths... Through the seeming oxymoron of the “helpful parasite,” Sharon questions the nature of our relationship with parasites—and suggests a new paradigm for the future.

Sharon Shattuck is a producer/director/animator with Sweet Fern Productions, the production company she founded. Her previous experience includes work with the Smithsonian Institute, the Field Museum, NPR’s On The Media, and internships with WNYC’s Radiolab, and the BBC World Service/Stakeholder Forum. She has an undergraduate degree in forest ecology and a graduate degree in documentary and broadcast journalism. Her first film, the short Parasites: A User’s Guide (2010), was an official selection of the Traverse City Film Festival, the Camden International Film Festival, the Michigan Film Festival, and the International Science Film Festival. In addition to her work with Sweet Fern, she is a member of the creative team at Wicked Delicate Films.(sweetfernproductions.com / wickedelicate.com)

The Pathological Sublime and The Anatomical Unconscious
Mark Dery
Date: Sunday, April 29
Time: 6:00 PM
Admission: $10

Celebrating the publication of his essay collection, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-By Essays on American Dread, American Dreams (University of Minnesota Press), cultural critic and cult author Mark Dery will lecture— with unforgettable slides—on the hallucinatory Crypt of the Cappuchin monks in Rome, the uncanny wax mannequins at La Specola in Florence, and the 19th-century Chinese artist Lam Qua's paintings of patients with eye-poppingly bizarre tumors, which so fascinated Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. that he wrote an article exhorting all “worshipers of morbid anatomy” to see the paintings, a textbook example of what Holmes called “the pathological sublime.” Join Mark for a dark ride through the Pathological Sublime and the Anatomical Unconscious, and pick up a copy of I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, the book Boing Boing called “an intellectual journey through our darkest desires and strangest inclinations.”

Mark Dery is a cultural critic. He is best known for his writings on the politics of popular culture in books such as The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century, Flame Wars, and Culture Jamming. He has been a professor of journalism at New York University, a Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Irvine, and a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome. His latest book, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, is “a head-spinning intellectual ride through American dreams and American nightmares” and will be available at his Cornelia Street Observatory engagement. (thoughtcatalog.com/author/mark-dery)

If you love Radio Lab, Cabinet magazine, the Surreal, the quirky, and the macabre, you'll definitely dig Cornelia Street Observatory.

All shows are Sunday at 6 PM, tickets are $10. Please RSVP to 212.989.9319. For more, click here.

Image: from the website for Cornelia Street Café.

The Museum of Everything is Coming to New York City!

2012-01-16T16:54:00.000-05:00

Some of you might remember some not so distant blog posts about the amazing Museum of Everything exhibition in London last year. Well, for those of you who missed that mind-bending spectacle, I have some great news: The Museum of Everything is coming to town, to join in on the festivities of The Outsider Art Fair.

Full details--taken from their newsletter--follow; hope very much to see you at one of these great events!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE SHOP OF EVERYTHING
AT THE OUTSIDER ART FAIR
26TH – 29TH JANUARY 2012
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Touching down at the Outsider Art Fair is The Shop of Everything, a glamorous boutique selling limited edition books, prints & merchandise created by The Museum of Everything & its artists.

The Shop of Everything will be open for business from the 26th to 29th January, with lithograph prints by George Widener, William Scott & Sir Peter Blake, designer dresses by Clements Ribeiro in collaboration with Atelier der Villa & Creative Growth, four hand-crafted volumes from the museum's European shows, not to mention travel-bags, homeware, casual attire, creative stationary, all discounted for this first foray into the Americas.

Please do not miss this spectacular opportunity to buy a few bits & bobs, shake a few hands & see a few wonderful things. Remember, what we got at The Shop of Everything ain’t available anywhere else ... & here’s another good reason why you should come:

The Outsider Art Fair is where many first discovered the great non-traditional artists of the 20th Century. Yet can this essential creativity still be dismissed as outsider art? These artists are part of our legacy, the form the aesthetic fabric of our universe, they must be celebrated & included, not denigrated & denied. Death to outsider art! Long live the outsiders!

The Museum of Everything
January 2012

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SCREENING: IS IT ART?
2PM ON FRIDAY 27TH JAN
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In September & October 2011, The Museum of Everything opened Exhibition #4 at Selfridges of London - the first major survey of work from studios for self-taught artists with learning & other disabilities, & a retrospective of American artist, Judith Scott.

Over 100,000 visitors attended the show & its artists were featured throughout the media. During the Frieze Art Fair 2011, Intelligence Squared hosted a debate at The Museum of Everything with some of the leading artists, thinkers & curators in Britain: Chris Dercon, director of Tate Modern; Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward Gallery; artists Antony Gormley & Alice Anderson; Tom di Maria, director of Creative Growth; Roger Cardinal, art historian & creator of the term "outsider art" & Jon Snow, Britain's leading television interviewer & host of Channel 4 News.

The question presented to the panel was: if someone creates work which we call a work of art, yet that same person cannot conceive of it as a work of art, then what is it - art or something else? Find out what they said in the premiere of the film Is It Art?, screening exclusively at the Outsider Art Fair.

Intelligence Squared presents Is It Art?
(60 mins) 2011

2:00pm on Friday 27th January 2012
Outsider Art Fair

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE FILMS OF EVERYTHING
5:30PM ON FRIDAY 27TH JAN
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Narrated live by James Brett, founder of The Museum of Everything, The Films of Everything present an illustrated history of the museum, from its critically heralded opening at the Frieze Art Fair 2009, right up to its most recent installation at Selfridges of London.

Included in the talk will be films recording the museum’s projects at Tate Modern and with Sir Peter Blake, as well as those featured in Exhibition #4, revealing self-taught artists in studios across Europe, plus the BBC2 segment on celebrated American artist Judith Scott.

The films & talk will be followed by a Q+A discussion on the museum's growing visibility on the international stage, as well as projects in African, Russian and Middle Eastern pipelines.

The Films of Everything
(90 mins) 2009-11
Premiere Screening & Talk

5:30pm on Friday 27th January 2012
Outsider Art Fair

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
COLLECTING OBSESSION
6PM ON SATURDAY 28TH JAN
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Find out what it takes to be an accumulator of accumulations, as leading European collectors Bruno Decharme of abcd Paris & James Brett of The Museum of Everything share war stories with American collector Lawrence Benenson & describe the ins & outs of amassing work by some of the overlooked creators in the history of modern art.

Moderated by art historian & curator Valérie Rousseau, the talk will take the form of a discussion panel & might degenerate into a wrestling match.

Collecting Obsession
Discussion Panel

6:00pm on Saturday 28th January 2012
Outsider Art Fair

More can be found here and here.

Philippe Verheyen Dissecting His Amputated Limb, ca. 1715

2012-01-14T22:57:00.000-05:00

Philippe Verheyen (1648-1711) Dissecting His Amputated Limb

By an anonymous artist, ca. 1715. Postmortem painting in honor of a famous Dutch anatomist and surgeon.

Medium: Oil on Panel. Size: 16.3”X16.5”

From the collection of Pieter Deheijde.

Image and text via 100% Spleen.

"Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig," Morbid Anatomy Lecture, The Velaslavasay Panorama, Los Angeles, Feb. 9

2012-01-13T09:04:00.000-05:00

For those of you in the greater Los Angeles area: I would love to see you next month at at one of my very favorite Los Angeles attractions--The Velaslavasay Panorama--where I will be giving a lecture entitled "Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig: A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum." The images above--drawn from my recent photo exhibitions The Secret Museum and Anatomical Theatre--constitute a tiny sampling of the many images I will be showing in the presentation.

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

Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig:
A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum
An Illustrated Lecture by Joanna Ebenstein
_______

The Velaslavasay Panorama
1122 West 24th Street, Los Angeles, CA
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
8 o’clock PM
Tickets $10 {$8 VPES Members, Students, Seniors}
Advance Tickets Available here:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/221012

The Velaslavasay Panorama welcomes photographer and researcher Joanna Ebenstein, who will be here Thursday, February 9th at 8 pm to present an illustrated lecture entitled Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig: A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum. Abounding with images and insight, Ms. Ebenstein’s lecture will introduce you to the Medical Museum and its curious denizens, from the Anatomical Venus to the Slashed Beauty, the allegorical fetal skeleton tableau to the taxidermied bearded lady, the flayed horseman of the apocalypse to the three fetuses dancing a jig. Ebenstein will discuss the history of medical modeling, survey the great artists of the genre, and examine the other death-related arts and amusements which made up the cultural landscape at the time that these objects were originally created, collected, and exhibited.

Joanna Ebenstein is a New York-based artist and independent researcher. She runs the popular Morbid Anatomy Blog and the related Morbid Anatomy Library, where her privately held cabinet of curiosities and research library are made available by appointment. Her work has been shown and published internationally, and she has lectured at museums and conferences around the world. For more information, visit http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com

Tickets available here. You can find out more about the panorama (one of my favorite spots in LA! highly recommended!) by clicking here.

Images top to bottom, as drawn from my recent photo exhibitions The Secret Museum and Anatomical Theatre:

"Anatomical Venus" Wax wodel with human hair and pearls in rosewood and Venetian glass case, "La Specola" (Museo di Storia Naturale), Florence, Italy, Probably modeled by Clemente Susini (around 1790)
"Slashed Beauty" Wax wodel with human hair and pearls in rosewood and Venetian glass case, "La Specola" (Museo di Storia Naturale), Florence, Italy, Probably modeled by Clemente Susini (around 1790)
"Anatomical Venuses," Wax Models with human hair in rosewood and Venetian glass cases,The Josephinum, Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence circa 1780s, Vienna, Austria
The Mütter Museum : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pathological model; 19th Century?
Wax Model of Eye Surgery, Musée Orfila, Paris. Courtesy Université Paris Descartes
Wax Anatomical Models in Rosewood and Venetian Glass Boxes, The Josephinum, Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence circa 1780s, Vienna, Austria
Wax moulages; Probably by Carl Henning (1860-1917) or Theodor Henning (1897-1946); Early 20th Century; Federal Pathologic-Anatomical Museum (Pathologisch-anatomisches Bundesmuseum): Vienna, Austria, Austria
Plaster Models in Pathological Cabinet, The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow
Skeleton and hand models for "la médecine opératoire" Musée Orfila, Paris. Courtesy Université Paris Descartes

Gabba Gabba Hey! Ramones Night at Observatory TONIGHT, Friday January 13 at 8:00

2012-01-13T08:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight at Observatory! Hope to see you there.

Gabba Gabba Hey! Ramones Night at Observatory
A screening of End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones out-takes and Q&A with filmmakers Jim Fields, Michael Gramaglia and John Gramaglia
Date: Friday, January 13th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In 2003, the documentary End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones was released to great critical and popular acclaim after much legal finagling with The Ramones and their managers. On Friday the 13th of January, join the team behind the film--directors Jim Field and Michael Gramaglia and editor John Gramaglia--for an evening that takes up where the film left off. The night will feature screenings of numerous out-takes from the film, as well as anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of getting the film made. Following that, the team will take questions from the audience.

Jim Fields is a doc filmmaker and co-director of "EOTC" with Michael Gramaglia. He's currently a staff video journalist for Time.com.

Michael Gramaglia is a filmmaker living in Queens. His current project is a feature film about Graham Parker.

John Gramaglia is a freelance editor for documentaries and TV commercials.

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here.

"Death In The Closet: The Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn Breaks Today’s Taboos," The Toronto Standard

2012-01-12T19:44:00.000-05:00

Once, walking back from school, I found a dead sparrow and took it home with me. My mom screamed when she found it lying on the floor of my pink-and-white bedroom. The bird was buried in the backyard.

Joanna Ebenstein did the same thing when she was growing up, but her dad gave her a bottle of formaldehyde and her bedroom filled with animals in jars. Her collection has only grown since then, becoming what’s now the Morbid Anatomy Library: a cramped studio in Brooklyn, New York, filled with emu feet, mummified frogs, a human skeleton, and books upon books about death, medicine and science...

--"Death In The Closet: The Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn Breaks Today’s Taboos," Laura Trethewey, The Toronto Standard

You can read the whole nuanced, thoughtful and spot-on piece--one of my favorite articles yet written about the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about the Morbid Anatomy Library by clicking here.

Photos: Installation views of the Morbid Anatomy Library by Shannon Taggart.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours This Saturday!

2012-01-12T08:59:00.002-05:00

This Saturday--January 14--the Morbid Anatomy Library (seen above) will be hosting open, no-appointment-necessary drop in hours from 2 until 6 PM. So feel free to drop in for a perusal of the stacks and to meet our latest addition.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here.

Photo of The Library by Shannon Taggart

"Object Migration" Opening Reception, Proteus Gowanus, Tomorrow Night (January 12), 7pm

2012-01-11T17:06:00.000-05:00

I have gotten a sneak peek of the new exhibition "Object Migration" at Proteus Gowanus, which officially opens with a reception tomorrow night at 7 PM. From what I have seen thus far, this is a pretty exciting exhibition, a real ode to material culture with lots of intrigue and surprises. Hope to see you at the opening, for which full details follow:

Proteus Gowanus
Thursday, January 12
7pm
543 Union Street Brooklyn

Join us for wine and conversation at the opening of the Object Migration exhibition. This show is a transitory museum of terrestrial transitions with over 50 objects and their migratory stories brought to us by you, our friends and collaborators. Some objects speak of intensely intimate moments while others tell geologic tales of perfect indifference.

When we think about migration (as we have been doing all year), we tend to focus on people and creatures, the mobile inhabitants of the planet. But life and motion create products and byproducts: tools, waste, the implements of culture. These are often the things that drive us onward in our migrations. Their stories are ineluctably connected with our own. At the points where our stories intersect with objects, much is revealed, not only about our personal trajectories but also about our precarious relationship with the environment.

We sent out the following message: “Do you have an object whose story you would like to share? An heirloom, an artwork, a toothbrush, a stone? An object which has inspired you, dominated you, educated you, exalted or degraded you? For our second exhibition of the Migration year, we invite you to lend us your object and include with it everything you know about it. We are especially interested in the part of the story that is the object’s alone: it’s history as material, as an economic entity, as waste, or as the impetus for other migratory tales.”

This query brought us over 50 objects which are the jumping off point for a three-month exploration of Object Migrations.

The objects on display range from a 50 million year old “dinosaur fart” (or gas bubble) to a collection of wild bird’s stomach contents collected in the early 20th C for “scientific” purposes. There are also talismans, mundane objects with secret meanings, things of beauty and much more.

We will view them as independent beings with stories of their own, stories that began before the object’s encounter with its current owner and that will likely continue long after they part. The stories may migrate into the economic, the industrial, the political, the historical, the geologic, the environmental and so on as visitors add to the stories on display with information they may have about the object in question.

More can be found here.

"Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now," Directed by Ildiko Nemeth, Through January 15

2012-01-11T09:28:00.002-05:00

In an intimate theater, a showman clairvoyant brings his subjects to the stage and promises his audience a spectacle of “raw shame.” One by one he entrances his chosen ones, leading them to reveal their most abject and malignant drives. But when no redemptive moment follows, the audacious seer must confront his own worst visions.

Loosely based on the story of Erik Jan Hanussen, Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant (as detailed in a book by the the amazing Mel Gordon), this play, directed by Ildiko Nemeth, is a subtle, troubling and thought-provoking meditation on entertainment, shame, and hubris in decadent times. With gorgeous costumes evoking a kind of space-age 1930s, inventive staging that achieves--with minimal resources--a true and creepy uncanniness at times, and excellent acting, this is a really a really fascinating piece that transcends its limitations and lingers with you.

You can find out more--and buy tickets--by clicking here. You can find out more about Mel Gordon's book by clicking here.

Image: Photo by Markus Hirnigel, Collage by Jessica Sofia Mitrani

“The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini," Lecture by Rebecca Messbarger, New York Academy of Medicine, Jan. 19

2012-01-08T08:08:00.001-05:00

Next Thursday, Rebecca Messbarger--author of the lovely and fascinating The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini--will be speaking at The New York Academy of Medicine about the life and work of this rare 18th century female anatomist and master wax modeller, whose wax self portrait--where she depicts herself in the act of dissecting a brain!--you see above.

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

“The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini”
The 2012 Malloch Circle Lecture and Reception
Date: January 19, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Speaker(s): Rebecca Messbarger, PhD, Associate Professor of Italian, Washington University
Location: The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York, NY 10029

The Malloch Circle, a special group of friends who are interested in the history of medicine and support the historical programs at NYAM, is hosting a lecture about Anna Morandi Manzolini, an illustrious 18th century anatomical modeler. This is a special introduction to the Malloch Circle, whose members are invited to dinner events featuring presentations of historical and bibliographic interest, exhibitions of relevant notable rare books, and private behind the scenes tour of the Rare Book Room.

Anna Morandi Manzolini was an illustrious 18th century anatomical modeler who, with her husband, Giovanni Manzolini, held anatomy lessons in their Bologna home. The artistry and accuracy of her wax models made her widely known as a leader in the field, and brought powerful supporters, including the Royal Society of London, Doge Moccenigo of Venice, and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Long forgotten, her story has been disinterred and developed through the research of Dr. Rebecca Messbarger. Professor Messbarger earned her PhD from the University of Chicago. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society. She is director of undergraduate studies in Italian, founder and co-convener of the 18th Century Interdisciplinary Salon, and an executive board member of the Society for 18th Century Studies. Her most recent book The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini, examines the details of Morandi’s remarkable life, tracing her intellectual trajectory from provincial artist to internationally renowned anatomical wax modeler for the University of Bologna’s famous medical school.

The Friends of the Rare Book Room is a special group of contributors who for sixty years have supported public programs in the history of medicine, the acquisition and cataloging of historical scholarly material, and activities that make the Malloch Rare Book Room a center for scholarship in the history of medicine and public health and for the study of books and printing. The Malloch Circle is composed of special Friends of the Rare Book Room who support this work at a level of $1,000 annually. The Malloch Circle is named for Archibald Malloch, a protege of William Osler, who served as the Academy's Librarian from 1926 to 1949. The continuing support of the Malloch Circle will dramatically improve the library's efforts to enhance its collections through full cataloguing and archival processing, digitization, and conservation treatment. The Malloch Circle meets several times a year for dinner and conversation, with special presentations of bibliographical and historical interest, and for private tours of notable rare book collections.

Registration Information
Cost: $35

You can find out more--and order tickets!--by clicking here. To find out more about Rebecca Messbarger's book The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini, click here.

Image: Wax self-portrait of 18th-century wax modeler and anatomist Anna Morandi Manzolini dissecting a human brain; Palazzo Poggi, Bologna; found here.

Theosophy, Spiritualism and Grand Central Station: Part 2 of Occult NYC with Mitch Horowitz on The Midnight Archive

2012-01-06T08:09:00.001-05:00

A new episode of The Midnight Archive--the web-based documentary series centered around Observatory--has just been uploaded and can be viewed above. In this episode, we continue our occult tour of New York City with Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation and leader of our popular Observatory Occult Walking Tour. Part one of this piece can be viewed here.

Film maker Ronni Thomas--the creator of The Midnight Archive--has this to say about the episode:

EPISODE 08 : Occult NYC part 2 -- We return to NYC as Mitch Horowitz, Author of Occult America, takes us to some of the more mysterious places in this fine city. We'll learn about Madame Blavatsky's midtown occult salon, get some insight into Grand Central's mystic design, and in my case at least - become acquainted with the occult stylings of Fred F. French. Make sure to keep aware of Mitch's walking tour which is hosted by The Brooklyn Observatory and Pam Grossman. And don't forget to pick up Mitch's book at amazon.com.

"Lunation: Art on the Moon" Opening Party, Observatory, This Saturday, January 7

2012-01-03T08:30:00.005-05:00

This Saturday at Observatory we will he hosting the opening party for Lunation, our first group-curated show. Admission is free, and the art will be intriguingly wide-ranging. I have a few pieces in the show, as do many other familiar faces.

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

LUNATION
Art on the Moon
Observatory's first group-curated show • January 7 – February 26, 2012
Opening Party: This Saturday, January 7th, 7–10 PM, FREE
Closing Party/Observatory's 3rd Anniversary Fundraiser: Saturday, February 18th, 8 PM/$20
Show Viewing Hours: Thursday & Friday 3–6 PM, Saturday & Sunday 12–6 PM

Artists and scientists have always been attracted to the moon...
Our closest celestial neighbor, the earth’s little sister, the moon creates the tides and illuminates the woods at night. For centuries, humanity believed the moon provided a key into the invisible realm: it called out the beast within us, freeing us to act as wolves, to run, to dance, to chant—and sometimes (as in Duncan Jones’ Moon) to split in two, to find our double, our changeling moon-self.

Is the moon home to life? Today we know it isn’t, but even as of 1830, speculation was rampant that the moon was inhabited by Christianized bat-people who worshiped in great ziggurats. (See The Sun and the Moon by Observatory alumnus Matthew Goodman for details.) Still, life comes to the moon. We know the moon contains frozen water, and we dream of using it as our jumping-off point for visiting even more alien vistas.

Down here, despite all the prowess and nuance of our latest telescopes, earthlings still look up naked-eyed with excitement at the full moon. Lovers and children gaze up at its slowly blinking façade in mute wonder. Artists portray the moon as a source of danger and power, and latter-day sorceresses and men of magic call up to that heavenly lamp, seeking to transcend the ordinary night. For them, the old myths have not changed so much: the moon is still a secret mirror, showing in pale light how the familiar contains always an element of the unexpected...

Artists Included

Grace Baxter
Jesse Bransford
Susan Crawford
Noah Doely
Joanna Ebenstein
Theo Ellsworth
Michelle Enemark
Ted Enik
Jesse Gelaznik
Ethan Gould
Dr. Gary Greenberg
Pam Grossman
Maria Liebana
Gerald Marks
Chad Merritt
Heidi Neilson
G.F. Newland
Rebeca Olguín
Herbert Pfost l
Kathryn Pierce
Lado Pochkhua
Dylan Thuras
James Walsh
Julianne Zaleta

LUNATION Dates to Save:

Sat., Jan. 7 – LUNATION opening! Come drink wine with us and celebrate the many phases/faces of the moon—including ones you've never seen before
Sat., Jan. 22 – Moon Magick ritual workshop presented by Pam Grossman of Phantasmaphile
Friday, Feb. 17: The Moon and Its Closest Inhabitants: A 3D Slideshow with 3D Legend Gerald Marks
Sat., Feb. 18 – 3rd Anniversary Observatory Fundraiser Party: Help support your favorite interdisciplinarian art, science, & occult event space!

You can find out more about Observatory--including directions--by clicking here.

Macabre

2012-01-02T17:53:00.002-05:00

Not sure where what the provenance is for this animated gif, but I kind of love it. Click on image to see larger version.

Via The Neo Shaman Tumblr.

Original Ellis Island Magic Lantern Slides from AMNH at Observatory Tomorrow Night!

2012-01-02T17:14:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow night, Proteus Gowanus and Morbid Anatomy present at Observatory! Hope to see you there.

Projection of Original Ellis Island Lantern Slides from the Collection of The American Museum of Natural History & Meredith Monk Screening
Tuesday, January 3, 2012, 8pm
Observatory, 543 Union Street (enter via Proteus Gowanus Gallery)
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Tomorrow night, join Proteus Gowanus and The Morbid Anatomy Library for a projection of original lantern slides of Ellis Island immigrants from the collection of the American Museum of Natural History presented by Barbara Mathe, head of special collections at the museum library. Following, we will view a special screening of Meredith Monk’s short film, ‘Ellis Island’ (1981), performed and filmed in the island’s ruins before the start of renovations for the Ellis Island Museum, which opened in 1990. Ellis Island was the gateway for the majority of immigrants to the United States, processing over 12 million immigrants from 1892 until 1954.

More--including directions--can be found here.

Image: Ellis Island Portraits - Lapland children, possibly from Sweden; Sherman, Augustus F. (Augustus Francis) — Photographer. [ca. 1906-1914]; Source: William Williams papers / Photographs of immigrants (more info); found here.

Happy New Years from Your Friends at Morbid Anatomy

2011-12-31T10:12:00.000-05:00

Happy New Years and bonne année to all of you, on this, the last day before we ring in the final year of the Mayan calendar.

All images found here.

Vanitas Drawing Featuring Real Human Skeleton, With Classically Trained Artist Lado Pochkhua: Observatory, 6 Mondays Beginning Jan. 9

2011-12-28T09:23:00.003-05:00

We have a new art class beginning on Monday, January 9th that I am very very excited about. Lado Pochkhua, an accomplished classically trained artist from Eastern Europe (see following bio) and artist in residence at our sister space Proteus Gowanus will, using a variety of artifacts drawn from The Morbid Anatomy Library, teach students to create and draw their own “vanitas”--or mortality-themed still life--compositions. The main star of said Vanitas composition will be the genuine human skeleton recently donated to the library, which you can see in the photograph above.

Full details follow; this is sure to be a awfully terrific class. Hope very much to see you there!

Vanitas Drawing Class with Classically Trained Artist Lado Pochkhua
Date: 6 Mondays, January 9th through February 13th
(Jan. 9, Jan. 16, Jan. 23, Jan. 30, Feb. 6 & Feb. 13)
Time: 7:30-10:00 PM
Admission: $110 (classes can also be taken individually on a drop-in basis for $20 per class)
*** This class has a 10 person size limit; Please RSVP for full course at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Vanitas is a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. A vanitas painting contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures, exhorting the viewer to consider mortality and to repent.

This Vanitas course will comprise six drawing lessons in which, using artifacts drawn from The Morbid Anatomy Library, students will learn how to create and draw their own “vanitas” composition. The ultimate goal of the class will be not only the creation of this particular drawing, but also understanding of the principles of classical drawing. The instructor will also share historical images throughout the course.

No previous drawing experience necessary; all levels are welcome!

MATERIALS
Please bring with you to class:

One drawing pad at least 18" X 20" with a firm back; paper Fabriano or Arches, or Strathmore 400
Pencil: HB, 2B, 4B, simple graphite pencils, (no charcoal !!!)
Eraser

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Lado Pochkhua was born in Sukhumi, Georgia in 1970. He received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Tbilisi State Art Academy in Georgia in 2001. He currently divides his time between New York and Tbilisi, Georgia.

Selected Exhibitions:

2011 “Works from the Creamer Street Studio,” at the Literature Museum, Tbilisi Georgia (solo show)
2010 “Paradise ” at Proteus Gowanus, New York
2009 “Prague Biennale 4,” Georgian pavilion
2009 “The Art of returning Home,” Arsi Gallery, Tbilisi Georgia (solo show)
2008 Gardens, Ships, and Lessons, K. Petrys Ház Gallery, Budapest, Hungary (solo show) Exhibition of Georgian Artists, Festival OFF EUROPA ditorei Gallerie NBL, Leipzig, Germany
2004 Artists of Georgia, Georgian Embassy, London, UK
2003 Curriculum Vitae: a retrospective of 20th century Georgian art, Caravasla Tbilisi History Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia, Waiting for the Barbarians, Gallery Club 22, Tbilisi, Georgia (solo show)
2001 21 Georgian Artists, UNESCO, Paris, France
1998 Magical Geometry, TMS Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia (solo show)

There is a 10 person limit for this class; you can sign up by sending an email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com. This class is one of the newest installments in the series newly termed The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy; to find out more about that--including a full class list thus far--click here.

Images: Top image: Still-Life with a Skull, "Vanitas" by Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674) via Wikimedia; Bottom image: Skeleton from The Morbid Anatomy Library who will be featured in our Vanitas compositions

Happy Holidays from Starewicz, Stop Motion Insects, and Morbid Anatomy

2011-12-22T08:14:00.000-05:00

The Insects' Christmas (1913)
Rozhdestvo obitateley lesa (original title)
A Father Christmas ornament climbs down from a decorated tree, and goes to the forest. There he creates and decorates a Christmas tree for the forest creatures. He then invites all the insects, along with a friendly frog, to come and enjoy the gifts he has prepared, and to celebrate Christmas. Written by Snow Leopard

Found via my former intern Laetecia; Text via IMDB.

Mel Gordon on The Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror: Episode 8 of The Midnight Archive!

2011-12-19T09:01:00.003-05:00

Episode eight of The Midnight Archive--the web-based documentary series centered around Observatory--has just been uploaded and can be viewed above. This episode is one I am personally very excited about; it is based on the work of my all-time favorite rogue-scholar Mel Gordon, specifically on his research into The Grand Guignol as explored in his classic Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror. It was shot in The Morbid Anatomy Library the night of his recent Observatory lecture on the same topic and features dozens of amazing images and even film footage (!!!) of a circa 1960s Grand Guignol performance, as well as a fascinating conversation with Mel Gordon. Check it out (highly recommended!) by hitting play above, or by clicking here.

Film maker Ronni Thomas--the creator of The Midnight Archive--has this to say about The Grand Guignol:

I have to admit - before i began this whole thing - i had no idea what the Grand Guignol theater was... I was raised on a magnificent diet of blood and gore as a kid. (For Christ's sake - i gave up my career as an adjunct professor to work for less than minimum wage at Troma films...) But - as always - the unsung bastard of this artform was a sleazy theatre in paris where eyes were gouged out - faces were burnt off - and torturous agony was displayed before some of the wealthiest and most affluent aristocrats while visiting the fabulous city of blights... (lights). In this episode - Mel Gordon - the man who LITERALLY wrote the book on the Grand Guignol gives us a brief explanation of what it was and what it meant to society, the world and all those other things i could care less about... I knew nothing about the theater before i started this as i've stated - and i've learned about 3 minutes more than that as i hope you will... enjoy... and please consider chopping up your neighbor as a fun tribute.

The Cultural History of 3D! "Oddities" Launch Party! Holiday Fair! Tonight and Beyond at Observatory

2011-12-13T11:34:00.000-05:00

This week and beyond at Observatory: A cultural history of 3D in 3D! Holiday Fair! "Oddities" marathon and season launch party! And a score of amazing new art classes comprising the newly launched Morbid Anatomy Art Academy! Hope to see you at one or more of these terrific events.

The Missing Dimension: A Cultural History of 3D Images - Anaglyphs, Stereographs, View-Masters, Holograms, and Flaming Arrows Coming Right at You!
Illustrated lecture on and in 3D (glasses provided) by artist and NYU Professor Chris Muller
Date: TONIGHT Tuesday, December 13th
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

An overview of the development of three-dimensional images, from the first recognition of the stereoscopic function of our two eyes in ancient times, to Charles Wheatstone's explanation of binocular vision and his creation of the stereoscope in 1838, and the flood of three dimensional images that followed the invention of photography. We'll look at the stereograph viewer developed by Oliver Wendell Holmes that was in every Victorian parlor, the View-Master in every baby boomer's childhood bedroom, red and green anaglyph printing that allowed comic book characters to pop off the page, and the strange story of the development of 3D film. The unique pleasures of the 3D image will be celebrated, and its persistent failure to become the Next Step in photography and film discussed. The lecture will be illustrated entirely and gratuitously in 3D, with glasses provided to all comers.

Chris Muller is an artist and exhibit designer based in Brooklyn. He has designed exhibits for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum for African Art, the Children's Museum of Manhattan, and many others. He has designed sets for Laurie Anderson, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company, and others. He teaches drawing and digital painting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Image: Image by Chris Muller

“Oddities” Marathon and Season Launch Party
Screening of TV's "Oddities" followed by after party with MC Lord Whimsy, giveaways, special drinks, and DJ
Date: Saturday, December 17th
Time: 8:00
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

On Saturday, December 17th, you are cordially invited to join Morbid Anatomy and Observatory as we gather to celebrate the new season launch of "Oddities," that unlikely hit of a television series based on our favorite purveyor of curious and amazing artifacts, Obscura Antiques and Oddities in New York City's East village.

The evenings festivities will include the screening of several new episodes of "Oddities," special drinks and music by Friese Undine, and give-ways by Kikkerland and Obscura Antiques. The always charming Lord Whimsy will oversee the evening in his role of Master of Ceremonies, and members of the cast of "Oddities" will be on hand for questions and comments.

To find out more about the show, check out http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/oddities.

Hope very much to see you there!

2011 Morbid Anatomy and Observatory Holiday Fair
Holiday fair with multiple vendors serving your alternative holiday needs including taxidermy, miniature insect tableaux and more
Dates: Saturday, December 17 & Sunday, December 18
Time: Noon - 6:00 PM
Admission: Free
Free beer courtesy of our sponsor Brooklyn Brewery

Please join us on December 17th and 18th for a holiday fair presented in conjunction with partner spaces Proteus Gowanus and Morbid Anatomy. Here you will find such covetables as steampunk jewlery, anatomical blocks, macabre drawings, ceramic reliquary bat heads, wet specimens, photographs, and books, books and more books, all to music DJed by Lado Pochkhua and washed down with beer provided by our sponsor Brooklyn Brewery. This will be the perfect place to purchase unique, niche, and off-the-beaten-path gifts for those hard-to-please folks on your shopping list! Hope to see you there.

Image: Crocheted Skulls by Dewey Decimal Crafts, a featured seller at last year's fair. More of her work can be found here.

And more upcoming:

Anthropomorphic Chick Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: ***SOLD OUT; send email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to mailing list; December 20

JANUARY

CLASS: Dissection as Studio Practice: Lecture and Studio Art Class with artist Laura Splan *** Class size is limited; Must RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com; January 8
Vanitas Drawing Class with Classically Trained Artist Lado Pochkhua (class 1 of 6); January 9
January 10: Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand. ***SOLD OUT; send email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to mailing list
Gabba Gabba Hey! Ramones Night at Observatory: A screening of End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones out-takes and Q&A with filmmakers Jim Fields, Michael Gramaglia and John Gramaglia; January 13
UFOs, Ghosts, Monsters and the Afterlife: “UFO Hunters”' Bill Birnes on the Supernatural: A night with William Burns of TV’s UFO Hunters and Ancient Aliens, introduced and moderated by Ronni Thomas of The Midnight Archive; January 20
Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand. ***SOLD OUT; send email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to mailing list; January 24
The Search for Granny-Dump Mountain: Illustrated lecture by Journalist Justin Nobel; January 26
Class: Mummification: Learn the art and ritual of animal mummification with instructor Sorceress Cagliastro *** Limited Class Size; Please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com; January 29

FEBRUARY

PERFORMANCE: Buried Alive! A Matchbox Theatre: A matchbox theatre performance by Deborah Kaufmann; February 2 and 3rd
Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Special Valentine's Day Edition! ***SOLD OUT; send email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to mailing list; February 14
Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand. ***SOLD OUT; send email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to mailing list; February 21:

MARCH

Dissection and Drawing Workshop with Real Anatomical Specimenswith physical anthropologist Samuel Strong Dunlap, PhD *** Class size is limited; Must RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com; March 17
Carbon Dust Drawing Workshop, Featuring Real Anatomical Specimens with Board Certified Medical Illustrator Marie Dauenheimer, MA, CMI *** Class size is limited; Must RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com; March 18:

You can find out more and get directions to Observatory by clicking here. You can join the Observatory Facebook group by clicking here.

Morbid Anatomy and Observatory Holiday Fair, THIS WEEKEND December 17th and 18th

2011-12-12T14:17:00.001-05:00

This weekend, why not come by The Morbid Anatomy Library for the second annual Morbid Anatomy and Observatory Second Annual Holiday Fair? Just a few things you will find here: anatomical blocks, macabre drawings, taxidermy, tableaux, ceramic reliquary bat heads, wet specimens, photographs, tons of books, and much, much more! You will also find free beer complements of our sponsor Brooklyn Brewery.

Full details follow; Hope very much to see you there.

2011 Morbid Anatomy and Observatory Holiday Fair
Holiday fair with multiple vendors serving your alternative holiday needs including taxidermy, miniature insect tableaux and more
Dates: Saturday, December 17 & Sunday, December 18
Time: Noon - 6:00 PM
Admission: Free
Free beer courtesy of our sponsor Brooklyn Brewery

Please join us on December 17th and 18th for a holiday fair presented in conjunction with partner spaces Proteus Gowanus and Observatory. Here you will find such covetables as steampunk jewelry, anatomical blocks, macabre drawings, ceramic reliquary bat heads, wet specimens, photographs, and books, books and more books, all to music DJed by Lado Pochkhua and washed down with beer provided by our sponsor Brooklyn Brewery. This will be the perfect place to purchase unique, niche, and off-the-beaten-path gifts for those hard-to-please folks on your shopping list! Hope to see you there.

For directions, click here. To see some press coverage of the fair, click here, here, and here.

Image: Crocheted Skulls by Dewey Decimal Crafts, a featured seller at last year's fair. More of her work can be found here.

Grand Guignol Spectacular in The Huffington Post!

2011-12-12T12:52:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK CITY -- When the rides stop running at Coney Island each year in October, the area takes on a desolate and decidedly creepy character. That's all fine and well with the Coney Island Museum, which on Saturday night hosted the Grand Guignol Variety Show, an homage to the eponymous Parisian production that specialized in theatrical gore, sex and violence from 1897 to 1962.

The event, co-sponsored by the Morbid Anatomy Library and Atlas Obscura, featured two original plays from the Grand Guignol's golden era. They give a sense of what the theater was like in its heyday: In one, a spurned woman mutilates her former fiance with sulphuric acid, only to meet the same fate at his hand. In another, a man's unrequited love for the wife of his closest friend drives him to cast a hypnotist's spell on her. When she's tragically killed in a train crash, the spell's power remains. Disfigured and grotesque, she returns from beyond the grave to be at his side. Horrified, he kills himself...
--"Coney Island Museum Hosts Creepy Homage To Victorian Horror Theater," The Huffington Post, Rachel Tepper

Read the whole article--a review of Saturday's Grand Guingol Variety Show--in today's Huffington Post by clicking here. Please be indulgent when you read my quotes, keeping in mind that it was my birthday and I had had a few drinks by the time this interview took place...

All images are from the slide-show linked to the article and depict, from top to bottom:

MC Lord Whimsy with the cast of The Strange Case of Me Tarzan directed by G F Newland: Nick Demko-Pavese and the "bathing beauties" Megan Fitzpatrick, Rachel Rideout, Christine Colby and Lady Aye
Christine Colby in her Skeleton Dance costume
Mentalist Les Baird doing one of his amazing feats with a volunteer from the audience
Scene from L’Amant de la Morte (The Lover of the Dead), original Grand Guignol script from 1925 directed by Melissa Roth
Scene from Baiser dans la nuit (The Final Kiss), original Grand Guignol script from 1912, directed by Meg Moseley
Shot of the crowd thronging the gin bar, featuring cameos of Melissa Milgrom, Eric Bobelin, Aaron Beebe, and lots of unfamiliar faces

Grand Guignol Spectacular Reprise with Macabre Muppets

2011-12-11T12:56:00.002-05:00

Thanks so very very much to all you who came out to either a) perform in, or b) attend last night's amazing Grand Guignol Spectacular. It was very truly the best birthday ever, and I am still reeling from how many amazing performances I saw, and how many delicious drinks I partook of. Next year, someone simply must do a cover of this under-known Muppet Show segment from 1978, written by Shel Silverstein (!!!) and sung by Marisa Berenson, my favorite when I was a little girl, included above for your convenience.

Thanks again, and see you next time!

Tonight!! The Grand Guignol Spectacular: An Evening of Victorian Variety, Macabre Merriment, and Horror Live on Stage!

2011-12-10T08:12:00.000-05:00

Tonight! At the Coney Island Museum! Very much hope to see you there!

Grand Guignol Variety Show at The Coney Island Museum
Featuring classic Grand Guignol performances, film, toy theatre, song, dance, film and more, followed by a DJed after-party
Date: Saturday, December 10th
Time: 8:00 (doors at 7)
Admission: $25 (tickets available here)
Location: The Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn
Presented by Morbid Anatomy, Atlas Obscura and The Coney Island Museum and curated by Joanna Ebenstein & John Del Gaudio

From turn-of-the-century Paris through the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear with infamous productions featuring innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society, making it the progenitor of today’s blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking “splatter” films.

Join us on December 10th at the Coney Island Museum for a one-night-only ode to The Grand Guignol and its legacy. Our evening of variety theatre was developed in conversation with Mel Gordon, author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror; Participants will include Doll Parts, Meg Moseley, GF Newland, Melissa Roth, Shannon Taggart, Alison Termine, Ronni Thomas, and Kathleen Kennedy Tobin and the role of Master or Ceremonies filled by Lord Whimsy. Projects include stagings of two classic Grand Guignol plays, a toy theater version of Bryusov’s “The Sisters,” a harmonious and creepy rendition of “Dry Bones,” and more, all followed by an after-party with music and Hendrick’s Gin cocktails courtesy of Friese Undine.

More here.

Secret Science Club 6th-Annual “Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest, Tonight at The Bell House!

2011-12-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

Tonight! Hope to see you there.

Calling All Creatures . . . The Secret Science Club presents the 6th-annual "Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest"
Friday, December 9
8 PM @ the Bell House
$7

Just in time for the holidays . . . the beasts are back!

The Secret Science Club presents the 6th-annual “Carnivorous Nights TAXIDERMY CONTEST,” Friday, December 9, 8 pm @ the Bell House, $7

Calling all science geeks, nature freaks, and rogue geniuses! Your stuffed squirrel got game? Got a beaver in your brownstone? Bring your beloved beast to the Bell House and enter it to win!

Eligible to enter: Taxidermy (bought, found, or homemade), biological oddities, articulated skeletons, skulls, jarred specimens—and beyond, way beyond.

Show off your moose head, snake skeleton, rabbit relics, and other amazing specimens. Compete for prizes and glory. Share your taxidermy (and its tale) with the world.

The contest will be judged by our panel of savage taxidermy enthusiasts, including Robert Marbury of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists and feline wrangler Dorian Devins, co-founder and curator of the Secret Science Club.

Plus!
--Groove to furry tunes & video
--See an illustrated lecture on (yes!) taxidermy
--Imbibe ferocious specialty drinks! (They’ll bring out the animal in you.)

Entrants: Contact secretscienceclub@gmail.com to pre-register.

Spectators: Don’t miss a beastly second of this wild night!

Tickets: Advance tickets are available for purchase here.

This fiercely special edition of the Secret Science Club meets Friday, December 9 @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave; R to 9th St. Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. $7 cover.

Image: Mouse Taxidermist, student work from our popular Anthropomorphic Taxidermy class. More photos here; more on the class here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours This Sunday!

2011-12-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

This Sunday--December 11th--the Morbid Anatomy Library (seen above) will be hosting open, no-appointment-necessary drop in hours from 2 until 6 PM. So feel free to drop in for a perusal of the stacks and to meet our latest addition.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here.

Photo of The Library by Shannon Taggart

Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive, Monday December 5th, Observatory

2011-12-04T20:53:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night at Observatory! Be sure to arrive early, as this one is sure to sell out! Above are a few more of the hundreds of images that will be discussed.

Full details follow; hope to see you there!

Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive
Illustrated Lecture and book signing with Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS of the Burns Collection and Archive
Date: Monday, December 5th
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Books will be available for sale and signing; see bottom of this page for complete list of books available

Postmortem photography, photographing a deceased person, was a common practice in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These photographs, from the beginning of the practice until now, are special mementos that hold deep meaning for mourners through visually "embalming" the dead. Although postmortem photographs make up the largest group of nineteenth-century American genre photographs, until recent years they were largely unseen and unknown. Dr. Burns recognized the importance of this phenomenon in his early collecting when he bought his first postmortem photographs in 1976. Since that time he has amassed the most comprehensive collection of postmortem photography in the world and has curated several exhibits and published three books on the subject: the Sleeping Beauty series. Tonight, Dr. Burns will speak about the practice of postmortem photography from the 19th century until today and share hundreds of images from his collection.

About Sleeping Beauty: Dr. Burns’ first book on postmortem photography, Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America (1990) has been widely recognized as one of the most important photography books of all time. Sleeping Beauty has influenced an eclectic array of fields, from bereavement counseling and education to cultural anthropology, history, medicine, philosophy, religion and spirituality (not to mention pop music) and has been cited in debates on the death penalty, euthanasia and abortion. It has been the subject of numerous scholarly papers as well as seminars and exhibitions at notable institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New Museum of Contemporary Art. A decade later the Archive published Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography American & European Traditions in conjunction with an exhibit at the Musée d’Orsay. Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children, the third installment in this series was released this year to accompany a traveling exhibition.

About the Burns Collection and Archive: The Burns Collection, founded in 1975 hosts the nation's largest collection of early medical photography and has been generally recognized as one the most important private comprehensive collections of early photography (over one million photographs). The Collection is best known for images of the dark side of life: death, disease, disaster, mayhem, crime, racism, revolution, riots and war. Dr. Burns has authored forty-three photo-historical texts and curated more than fifty photographic exhibitions. He is a founding donor of several museum photography collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum and The Bronx Museum of the Arts. In addition to being an internationally distinguished author, curator, historian, collector, publisher, and archivist, Dr. Burns is a New York City ophthalmologist and Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center. The Burns Archive produces publications, exhibitions, and manages image licensing for the Burns Collection. To find out more, you can visit the Burns Archive Blog, website, or press website.

These Burns Archive titles will be available for sale and signing:
Sleeping Beauty III Memorial Photography: The Children $36
Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement & The Family in Memorial Photography... $85
Shooting Soldiers: Civil War Medical Photography by R.B. Bontecou $50
News Art: Manipulated Photographs from the Burns Archive $50
Deadly Intent, Crime & Punishment: Photographs from the Burns Archive $75
Seei ng Insanity: Photography & The Depiction of Mental Illness $40

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here. Directions to Observatory can be found here.

Moulage, after 1945 (original cast from 1900 to 1912), Made by the German Hygiene Museum, Dresden

2011-12-04T10:18:00.000-05:00

Moulage depicting "Angina lacunaris," made by the German Hygiene Museum, Dresden. Click on image to see larger image. More here.

Seeking Volunteers for Grand Guignol Spectacular Next Saturday, December 10

2011-12-03T12:46:00.000-05:00

Hi all! We are currently seeking a few volunteers to help with next Saturday's Grand Guignol Spectacular at The Coney Island Museum. We need a couple of folks to help with scene transitions during the show, and an experienced stage manager to help for the day of the show. All volunteers, of course, will be rewardd with free admission to the event!

Interested parties can email me here: morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com. More on the event can be found here.

Thanks so much and, either way, hope to see you there!

Image: From a Life Magazine story circa 1947 about the Grand Guignol entitled "Sick! A House of Horrors." More on that here. Caption reads: "Realistic throat-cutting, performed in The Hussy by honest farm lad on his depraved, scheming wife, is achieved by a trick dagger which contains 'blood' in the handle."

One Night Only! An Evening of Victorian Variety, Macabre Merriment, and Horror Live on Stage! The Grand Guignol Spectacular Tickets Now Available!

2011-12-02T07:31:00.001-05:00

Tickets for my Grand Guignol Birthday Spectacular on December 10th at The Coney Island Museum are now available for purchase here. And, just to whet your whistle, I post above a sketch of the specially commissioned set by NYU’s Chris Muller which will frame this unforgettable evening of "Victorian Variety, Macabre Merriment, and Horror Live on Stage" (click on image to see larger, more detailed version.) If you are interested in attending, we urge you to to purchase tickets soon, as they are sure to sell out!

Full info for the event follows. Hope very much to see you there!

Grand Guignol Variety Show at The Coney Island Museum
Featuring classic Grand Guignol performances, film, toy theatre, song, dance, film and more, followed by a DJed after-party
Date: Saturday, December 10th
Time: 8:00 (doors at 7)
Admission: $25 (tickets available here)
Location: The Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn
Presented by Morbid Anatomy, Atlas Obscura and The Coney Island Museum and curated by Joanna Ebenstein & John Del Gaudio

From turn-of-the-century Paris through the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear with infamous productions featuring innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society, making it the progenitor of today’s blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking “splatter” films.

Join us on December 10th at the Coney Island Museum for a one-night-only ode to The Grand Guignol and its legacy. Our evening of variety theatre was developed in conversation with Mel Gordon, author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror; Participants will include Doll Parts, Meg Moseley, Robert Munn, GF Newland, Melissa Roth, Shannon Taggart, Alison Termine, Ronni Thomas, and Kathleen Kennedy Tobin with a newly commissioned set by NYU’s Chris Muller (seen above) and the role of Master or Ceremonies filled by Lord Whimsy. Projects include stagings of two classic Grand Guignol plays, a toy theater version of Bryusov’s “The Sisters,” a harmonious and creepy rendition of “Dry Bones,” and more, all followed by an after-party with music and Hendrick’s Gin cocktails courtesy of Friese Undine.

Tickets available here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours This Weekend!

2011-11-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

This weekend--December 3rd and 4th--the Morbid Anatomy Library (seen above) will be hosting open, no-appointment-necessary drop in hours! On Saturday the 3rd, open hours will run from 12:30 to 6, and on Sunday the 4th from 3 until 6 PM. So feel free to drop in for a perusal of the stacks and to meet our latest addition.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here.

Photo of The Library by Shannon Taggart

"Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage," Exhibition, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, Through June 2012

2011-11-30T11:08:00.001-05:00

Half-naked Africans made to gnaw bones and presented as "cannibals" as they shivered in a mock tribal village in northern France; Native American children displayed at fairgrounds; families from Asia and the South Pacific behind railings in European zoos and dancing Zulus on the London stage.

Paris's most talked-about exhibition of the winter opened on Tuesday with shock and soul-searching over the history of colonial subjects used in human zoos, circuses and stage shows, which flourished until as late as 1958...

--Paris show unveils life in human zoo, The Guardian, Tuesday 29 November 2011

Wow. Finally. The exhibition I have long been waiting to see (and which just might inspire a pilgrimage!)

"Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage," now on view at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris through June 2012, "brings together hundreds of bizarre and shocking artefacts, ranging from posters for 'Male and Female Australian Cannibals' in London... to documentation for mock villages of 'Arabs' and 'Sengalese'" in the recounting of the under-discussed history of "exotic" humans on display from the 19th through the mid 20th Century. These kinds of display were prevalent not only abroad but also here in the United States, where they could be seen at sites ranging from World's Fairs to museums to Coney Island, as explored in the exhibit The Great Coney Island Spectacularium (on view through this summer).

More about the exhibit, from the museum website:

HUMAN ZOOS, The invention of the savage unveils the history of women, men and children brought from Africa, Asia, Oceania and America to be exhibited in the Western world in circus numbers, theatre or cabaret performances, fairs, zoos, parades, reconstructed villages or international and colonial fairs. The practice started in the 16th Century royal courts and continued to increase until the mid-20th Century in Europe, America and Japan.

A wide array of paintings, sculptures, posters, postcards, movies, photographs, mouldings, dioramas, miniatures and costumes provide insight on the scope of the phenomenon and on the success of the exotic performance industry, which captivated over a billion spectators who, between 1800 and 1958, marvelled at more than 35,000 individuals throughout the world.

Through 600 items and the screening of many film archives, the exhibition shows how this type of performance, when used as propaganda and entertainment, has fashioned the Western perspective and deeply influenced a certain perception of the Other for nearly five centuries.

The exhibition explores the sometimes fine lines between exotic individuals and freaks, science and voyeurism, exhibitionism and spectacle. It also questions visitors on their own contemporary biases.

While the exhibitions gradually disappear in the 30s, they have by then already had their effect, of setting a boundary between the exhibited and the spectators. Which begs the question: does that line still remain today?

Exhibition Path
Human zoos, The invention of the savage aims at giving back their name to women, men and children used as extras, circus freaks, actors and dancers, by telling their diverse and forgotten stories.

Based on research started over ten years ago (Pascal Blanchard, Human zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Empire, Liverpool University Press, 2008), a corpus of several thousand documents from over 200 international museums and private collections (including the Prado Museum, the Paris Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the British Library, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, the Frankfurt historical museum, the musée du quai Branly and the private collection gathered by the Achac research group), and cross cooperation with over thirty countries, this is the first major exhibition to internationally approach what has been called the ‘human zoos’.

In a scenography inspired by the world of theatre, the exhibition historically and thematically approaches the staging of so-called ‘exotics’ or ‘freaks’, as well as the reactions to these popular scientific or avant-garde shows throughout the world. In an audio guide, Lilian Thuram provides his comments to visitors as they walk through the exhibition to view posters, photographs, sculptures and other items, putting them in their specific context.

ACT 1 - DISCOVERING THE OTHER: REPORT, COLLECT, PRESENT

The first Act features the 15th and 18th Century arrival of exotic people in Europe, and their consideration as ‘strange foreigners’, categorized in four archetypes throughout the exhibition: the savage, the artist, the freak and the exotic ambassador.

Various media reported on the parade of Brazil’s Tupinamba ‘savages’ for the royal entrance of King Henri II in 1550 in Rouen, on the arrival of Siamese ambassadors at the Court of Versailles in 1686, on the 1654 presentation of Inuits to King Frederik II in Copenhagen and on the return of Captain James Cook to England with Tahitian ‘Noble Savage’ Omai in 1774. The latter inspired a play that was presented in Paris and London for many years…

The exhibition also features a famous portrait of Antonietta Gonsalvus painted by Lavinia Fontana (1585), depicting one of the Gonsalvus children, a family of the Canary Islands known in the 16th Century for its legendary hairiness.

ACT 2 – FREAKS & EXOTICS: OBSERVE, CLASSIFY, CATEGORIZE

The early 19th Century brings the emergence of a new genre: ethnic shows. They first develop in theater cafés before spreading to larger and larger venues and being included in exhibitions and circuses.

This process of staging the difference blurs the difference between the deformed and the foreign: physical, psychological and geographical abnormalities are first staged, and then become the focus of performances.

The first ethnic and freak shows add a new dimension to popular culture by more and more regularly bringing together exotic people alongside freaks. Case in point: Saartje Baartman, nicknamed the “Hottentot Venus”, exhibited in London and Paris in the early 19th Century. She represents a new phase of the exhibition process.

The first shows fashion and structure the Western view on otherness, specifically from regions such as the various regions Europe hopes to conquer or in the process of colonizing.

In the early stages of imperial colonization, theories arise on the classification and organization of humanity and on the concept of race: an academic way of thinking that marked humanities throughout the 19th century.

ACT 3 – THE SPECTACLE OF DIFFERENCE: RECRUIT, EXHIBIT, SHARE

Between 1870 and WWII, many venues start specializing in ethnic performance as the Crystal Palace, Barnum and Bailey in Madison Square, the Paris Folies Bergères or the famous Panoptikum in Berlin. It is the time of the professionalization of the activity, and exotic performance morphs into mass entertainment.

Visitors are introduced to “actors of savageness” who become true genre professionals: Aboriginals, ‘lip-plate women’, Amazons, snake charmers, Japanese tightrope walkers or oriental belly dancers, but also the first black clown in France called “Chocolat” and drawn by Toulouse-Lautrec and legendary Buffalo Bill, whose show revolves on the native American Indian archetype, which forever brands the Far West imagery.

Unbeknownst to them, audiences encounter made-up ‘savages’. Generally paid, the exhibited actively participate in building the imagery.

ACT 4 – STAGING: EXHIBIT, MEASURE, PROFILE

Reconstructed ethnic villages, zoos, colonial and international fairs, science and spectacle merge in multiple places. Exotic peoples and physical strangeness are brought together on stage as if they both equally represented the realm of abnormality.

Excess, grandeur and ephemeral reconstructions characterize this section of the exhibition with posters and painted dioramas, film ,screenings, photographs, automates and postcards.

The practice starts in public gardens, following the one in Paris which, in 1877, is the first in Europe to exhibit tribes and groups. Such exhibitions lead to the invention of travelling Villages, like Carl Hagenbeck’s. Major tours start in 1874, and in 1878 until the 30s, international and colonial fairs include an exotic dimension to their programs.

While this trend primarily hits Europe, it also reaches America, Japan and the colonies themselves (Australia, India and Indochina), and attracts hundreds of million visitors.

You can also read the entire article from which the introductory quote was drawn by clicking here. More can be found on the museum website by clicking here. For more on The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, click here.

Thanks so much to my buddy John Troyer for sending this along.

Bottom two images from News.com.au. Captions: Top: Nineteenth century models of heads of Botoduco men on display in Human Zoos: The invention of the savage. Picture: AFP; Bottom: Busts of an English man, a Chinese man, an Algerian man and a Brazilian man as part of Human zoos, The invention of the savage. Picture: AFP

Four Open Slots for Tonight's Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class!

2011-11-29T13:07:00.004-05:00

Four slots have just opened up for tonight's anthropomorphic mouse taxidermy class with Susan Jeiven class at Observatory! Full details follow; if interested in attending, please email me ASAP at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com. Emails will be considered in the order received.

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand
Date: TONIGHT Tuesday, November 29th
Time: 7 PM-11 PM
Admission: $60
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Anthropomorphic taxidermy–the practice of mounting and displaying taxidermied animals as if they were humans or engaged in human activities–was a popular art form during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The best known practitioner of the art form is British taxidermist Walter Potter who displayed his pieces–which included such elaborate tableaux as The Death of Cock Robin, The Kitten Wedding, and The Kitten Tea Party–in his own museum of curiosities.

Tonight, please join Morbid Anatomy and taxidermist, tattoo artist and educator Susan Jeiven for a beginners class in anthropomorphic taxidermy. All materials–including a mouse for each student–will be provided, and each class member will leave at the end of the day with their own anthropomorphic taxidermied mouse. Students are invited to bring any miniature items with which they might like to dress or decorate their new friend; some props and miniature clothing will also be provided by the teacher. A wide variety of sizes and colors of mice will be available.

No former taxidermy experience is required.

Also, some technical notes:

We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
Everyone will be provided with gloves.
All animals are disease free.
Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone.
All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class. All mice used are feeder animals for snakes and lizards and would literally be discarded if not sold.
Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class

More information can be found here. Mouse shown above was created in our last class, created by attendee Ronni Ascagni. More mice from that class can be found here.

Call for Work for 2nd Annual Morbid Anatomy Holiday Fair, December 17th and 18th

2011-11-29T07:56:00.000-05:00

This year, Morbid Anatomy will be teaming up with our sister spaces Observatory and Proteus Gowanus to host a 2-day holiday fair over the weekend of December 17th and 18th, from 12-6. If any of you local artists, craftspeople, photographers and/or makers of macabre, uncanny or unusual objects, artifacts, or curiosa out there are interested in selling work, please contact us at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com for more details. Please note: in order to participate, must be able to man your own table for the duration of the event.

Image: Crocheted Skulls by Dewey Decimal Crafts, a featured seller at last year's fair. More of her work can be found here.

"Dissection as Studio Practice" Illustrated Lecture and Studio Art Class with Artist Laura Splan at Observatory

2011-11-28T09:01:00.001-05:00

I am super excited to be announcing the upcoming class "Dissection as Studio Practice" at Observatory on Sunday, January 8th. I met the teacher--Laura Splan--at a conference many years back now. Since then, I have been a big fan of her work, a few examples of which can be seen above, including--top to bottom-- an installation view of her current solo show Reformulations; a blood-on-watercolor composition entitled "Elaborative Encoding"; and 3 images from her "Doilies"series of 2004, a set of computer machine embroidered doilies with the design of each doily based on a different viral structure; pictured here, top to bottom: Herpes, Sars, and Influenza.

This class--open to all experience levels--will "survey the use of dissection in contemporary art practice through an illustrated lecture, discussion and collaborative art project"; it will also provide a terrific opportunity to work with an accomplished and sophisticated conceptual artist while gaining insight into process and method behind the creation of iconic and powerful works dealing with dissection and the body. I, for one, simply cannot wait!

Full description of the class follows. Class size is limited; if interested, be sure to RSVP via email to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com. You can see more of Laura Splan's work by clicking here. Hope very much to see you there!

CLASS: Dissection as Studio Practice
Lecture and Studio Art Class with artist Laura Splan
Date: Sunday, January 8th
Time: 1-4 PM
Fee: $60
*** Class size is limited to 20; please RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com
This class will survey the use of dissection in contemporary art practice through an illustrated lecture, discussion and collaborative art project. We will examine the conceptual and cultural significance of cutting, excavating, disassembling, labeling, observing and displaying “bodies.” The lecture will present a brief history of dissection as well as work by contemporary artists exploring imagery, tropes and methods of dissection. The collaborative project will be a fun and lively hands on exploration of the meaning of dissection in a work of art. Participants should bring an object, artifact or specimen to “dissect” for the group exercise. Additional supplies, tools and materials will be provided. No prior art training is required.

Laura Splan is a Brooklyn based visual artist. Her mixed media work explores historical and cultural ambivalence towards the human body. She was recently a Visiting Lecturer at Stanford University where she taught “Art and Biology” in the Art & Art History Department. She has been a Visiting Artist at the New York Academy of Sciences, California College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Cal Arts. She curates the visual portal DomesticatedViscera.com. Images of her artwork can be found on her website: LauraSplan.com.

You can contact Laura through her website with any questions about the class by clicking here.

If you are interested in signing up for this class, please email me at morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com. To see more of Laura Splan's fantastic work, click here. This class is one of the newest installments in the series newly termed The Morbid Anatomy Artist Academy; to find out more about that--including a full class list thus far--click here.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

2011-11-24T08:38:00.000-05:00

Via Abduzeedo's collection of vintage Thanksgiving postcards; more here.

Grand Guignol Spectacular: Tickets Now Available, Fundrasing Drive, and Film of Final Performance!

2011-11-22T10:53:00.001-05:00

Above is a narrated scene from the final performance--circa 1962--of the Grand Guignol, a Parisian theatre infamous from its opening in 1897 until it final performance in 1962 for naturalistic theatrical productions merging horror and elegance, sex and death, fear and humor.

To celebrate my 40th birthday this year, my friend John Del Gaudio and I are putting together a Grand Guignol-inspired variety show that will take place at The Coney Island Museum in Brooklyn this December 10th at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $25 and include not only a night of horror variety theatre, but also a masquerade after party and complementary Hendricks Gin Cocktails prepared by Friese Undine.

The evening was developed in conversation with UC Berkeley's Mel Gordon, author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror and will feature a newly commissioned set by NYU’s Chris Muller, stagings of classic Grand Guignol plays, a toy theater version of Bryusov’s “The Sisters,” short films, song and dance, WWI 3D glass plate projection with theremin accompaniment, and more.

We are in the process of trying to raise funds with which to pay all participators a modest stipend and expenses. If you are interested in contributing to this campaign--and/or in finding out more about the evening, including the full lineup thus far--click here. Donations of $100 or more earn contributers a free ticket to the festivities, while donations of lesser amounts earn you a listing in the program; donations of any amount will earn our deepest and heartfelt gratitude!

Whether you are able to contribute or not, I would love to see you at the event! Tickets for the event have just gone on sale, so if you are interested in attending, please click here to purchase.

Thanks so much, and hope to ring in a new decade with you at Coney Island!

William Cheselden Giving an Anatomical Demonstration to Six Spectators in the Anatomy-theatre of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, London, Circa 1730/1740

2011-11-21T16:09:00.000-05:00

In Cheselden’s time, surgeons trained through an apprenticeship during which, they would attend private anatomy lessons. Before the Anatomy Act of 1832, the only legal supply of bodies for anatomical purposes where those of criminals condemned by the courts. The Barber-Surgeons’ Company kept scrupulous control over the use of bodies dissected in their hall, with the macabre ritual of often later displaying the dissected bodies of executed criminals in niches around the walls. Cheselden himself was fined by the Company in 1714 for carrying out dissections without permission, which drew away audience members from regular lectures at the Company. With students having little opportunity to take part in dissections themselves, teachers would rely on models or anatomical preparations for class...

Image and text from The Wellcome Collection blog; you can learn more about this fabulous painting--and read the text in its entirety--by clicking here.

Full image credit: William Cheselden giving an anatomical demonstration to six spectators in the anatomy-theatre of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, London. Oil painting, ca. 1730/1740. Wellcome Images.

Anthropomorphic Taxidermy Classes! Powerpoint Film! The Occult in Art! Upcoming Events at Observatory

2011-11-14T13:04:00.001-05:00

Anthropomorphic taxidermy! Powerpoint films! The occult in art! Hope to see you at one or more of these great upcoming events at Observatory.

Also, please note: although the next two mouse taxidermy classes are now sold out, there are newly scheduled classes taking place on Tuesdays January 10, January 24, February 14 (special Valentine's Day edition!) and February 21. There is also a very special Holiday-themed Anthropomorphic Chick Taxidermy Class on the first night of Hanukkah, December 20 (click here for more). If interested, please send number of party and first and second date choice to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com. Please note: these classes tend to sell out VERY quickly, sp email me as soon as possible!

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand
Date: Tuesday, November 15th
Time: 7 PM-11 PM
Admission: $60
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** SOLD OUT
Anthropomorphic taxidermy–the practice of mounting and displaying taxidermied animals as if they were humans or engaged in human activities–was a popular art form during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The best known practitioner of the art form is British taxidermist Walter Potter who displayed his pieces–which included such elaborate tableaux as The Death of Cock Robin, The Kitten Wedding, and The Kitten Tea Party–in his own museum of curiosities.

On Tuesday November 15th, please join Morbid Anatomy and taxidermist, tattoo artist and educator Susan Jeiven for a beginners class in anthropomorphic taxidermy. All materials–including a mouse for each student–will be provided, and each class member will leave at the end of the day with their own anthropomorphic taxidermied mouse. Students are invited to bring any miniature items with which they might like to dress or decorate their new friend; some props and miniature clothing will also be provided by the teacher. A wide variety of sizes and colors of mice will be available.

No former taxidermy experience is required.

Also, some technical notes:

We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
Everyone will be provided with gloves.
All animals are disease free.
Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone.
All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class. All mice used are feeder animals for snakes and lizards and would literally be discarded if not sold.
Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the clas

You can contact Sue with any more questions by clicking here.

The Occult in Modern Art 101
An illustrated lecture by Pam Grossman
Date: Friday, November 18th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8
Presented by: Phantasmaphile
Though few history books make mention of it, many of our most lauded artists — Picasso, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Duchamp, to name but a few — were deeply influenced by the occult. The imagery and tenets of arcane traditions including alchemy, Spiritualism, Theosophy, and shamanism have infused the work of artists through the ages. Beginning with the Symbolists, then spiraling through such periods as Cubism, Dada, Surrealism (with its wonderfully witchy women), Abstract Expressionism, and the visionary art of today, this evening’s lecture will be a visual primer on the existence of magic in our museums and galleries.

Pam Grossman is an independent curator and lifelong student of magical practice and history. She is the creator of Phantasmaphile, a blog which specializes in art and culture with an esoteric or fantastical bent. Her group art shows, Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists, VISION QUEST, and Alchemically Yours have been featured by such outlets as Boing Boing, CREATIVE TIME, Time Out New York, Juxtapoz, Arthur, 20×200, UrbanOutfitters.com, and Neil Gaiman’s Twitter. She is a co-founder of Observatory, where her programming aims to explore mysticism via a scholarly yet accessible approach. By day, she is the Creative Planning Manager for Getty Images North America.
Image: Leonora Carrington "La maja del tarot" 1965

“No Computer Is An Island” : PowerPoint Film with Live Musical Accompaniment
Film by James Bell and music by Paul Deuth (a.k.a. Meteorologeist)
Runtime approx 1 hr.
Date: Saturday, November 19th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

“No Computer Is An Island” is a silent movie animated entirely in PowerPoint and accompanied by electronic music, mixed live during the presentation. Utilizing inventive music and limited animation presets, a depressing world of office life, shallow relationships and adult responsibility is presented in 256 colors. The presentation follows a day in the life of one workflow shape, appropriately named Bubbles, as he goes about the business of being a detached thought bubble. Other workflow characters overlap and interrupt his story, creating images that exploit the constraints of PowerPoint as an animation tool by using the conventions of silent film. “No Computer Is An Island” engages the timeless need for narrative, inviting the viewer to create meaning slide by slide.

James E. P. Bell regularly makes PowerPoint presentations in an office building in midtown Manhattan. A founding member of the interactive performance group PowerPoint, James has explored the aesthetic potential of MicroSoft Office applications in productions such as “Introduction to Change Management” (1999), “Violence in the Workplace” (2003), and now “No Computer Is An Island” (2010).

Paul Deuth is an electronic musician/composer/producer (A.K.A. Meteorologeist) and director of photography. With an extensive career in television, Paul most enjoys expressing himself in multi-media artistic ventures including projects with PowerPoint, Fire and Ice, Hold Please, and the Prospects. You can experience some of Paul’s music at http://www.myspace.com/meteorologeist

Onwards and Upwards:

Tuesday, November 29: Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand. 7-11pm/$60 *** SOLD OUT

Monday, December 5: Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive: Illustrated Lecture and book signing with Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS 8pm/$5

Saturday, December 10: Grand Guignol Variety Show at The Coney Island Museum: Featuring classic Grand Guignol performances, antique 3D stereoscopic slides, puppet and toy theatre, song, dance, film and more, followed by after-party with cocktails courtesy of Hendrick’s Gin; support this project on IndieGoGo by clicking here 8pm/$25

Tuesday, December 13: The Missing Dimension: A Cultural History of 3D Images - Anaglyphs, Stereographs, View-Masters, Holograms, and Flaming Arrows Coming Right at You!: Illustrated lecture on and in 3D (glasses provided) by artist and NYU Professor Chris Muller 8pm/$5

Saturday, December 17: “Oddities” Marathon and Season Launch Party: Screening of TV’s “Oddities” followed by after party with MC Lord Whimsy, giveaways, special drinks, and DJ 8pm/$8
Tuesday, December 20: Anthropomorphic Chick Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Limited class size; must RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com 7-11pm/$60
Sunday, January 8: CLASS: Dissection as Studio Practice: Lecture and Studio Art Class with artist Laura Splan *** Class size is limited; Must RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com 1-4pm/$60
Thursday, January 26: The Search for Granny-Dump Mountain: Illustrated lecture by Journalist Justin Nobel 8pm/$5

Sunday, January 29: Class: Mummification: Learn the art and ritual of animal mummification with instructor Sorceress Cagliastro *** Limited Class Size; Please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com 1-4pm/$65
Thursday, February 2: PERFORMANCE: Buried Alive! A Matchbox Theatre: A matchbox theatre performance by Deborah Kaufmann 8pm/$12

Friday, February 3: PERFORMANCE: Buried Alive! A Matchbox Theatre: A matchbox theatre performance by Deborah Kaufmann 8pm/$12

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here.

Decadent Paris Weekend (with Complementary Absinthe!): Tonight and Tomorrow Night!

2011-11-11T08:10:00.001-05:00

This weekend, you are cordially invited to join Morbid Anatomy at Observatory for a "Decadent Paris Weekend" comprised of two amazing lectures devoted to cornerstones of fin de siècle Paris--Grand Guignol horror theatre and diabolical liquors--augmented by complimentary absinthe (!!!) provided by our weekend's sponsor La Fée Absinthe.

Night one--Tonight, Friday November 11th--of our weekend will feature one of my alltime favorite rogue scholars and public speakers, Mel Gordon, delivering an illustrated lecture on The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962. Copies of his out-of-print and groundbreaking book by the same name will be on hand, substantially discounted and available for signing.

Night two-Tomorrow night, Friday November 12th--will bring many time Observatory lecturer (1, 2, 3) and Midnight Archive creator Ronni Thomas back to Observatory for an ode to "Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris" in the form of an illustrated lecture, a screening, and a liquor tasting.

You wil find full information below for both events; Hope to see you there!

The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962
Illustrated lecture/booksigning with author and scholar Mel Gordon
Date: Friday, November 11th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise
***Signed copies of Gordon's long out-of-print Grand Guiginol will be available for sale at $30 (copies generally go for $60-150)

Decadent Paris Weekend Event # 1 (For Decadent Paris Event #2, Click here)

Hidden among the decadence and sleaze of Pigalle with its roughnecks and whores, in the shadows of a quiet, cobbled alleyway, stands a little theatre... --"Grand Guignol: The French Theatre or Horror," Hand and Wilson

From its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris and through its decline in the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol--literally "grand puppet show"--gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear. Its infamous productions featured innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society. By dissecting primal taboos in an unprecedentedly graphic manner, the Grand Guignol became the progenitor of all the blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking "splatter" movies of today.

Tonight, join Professor Mel Gordon--author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror--to learn about the largely forgotten history of the Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in this heavily-illustrated and highly engaging lecture.

Mel Gordon is the author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, 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 Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.
Image: Grand Guignol Poster, from the collection of Mel Gordon
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris: Lecture and Tasting
Illustrated lecture and liquor tasting with film maker Ronni Thomas
Date: Saturday, November 12th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise

Decadent Paris Weekend Event # 2 (For Decadent Paris Event #1, Click here)

On Saturday November 12th, join Ronni Thomas and Observatory for an exploration of the exotic and often diabolic liquids of France's antiquity featuring absinthe, a liquor known in fin de siècle Paris as "the green fairy" for its bewitching allure and poetically transporting nature. Among history's most infamous and romanticized liquors, absinthe became a symbol of decadence and was drink of choice of such bohemian luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Vincent van Gogh, Alfred Jarry, Édouard Manet, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso. By 1915, it was widely banned after having been publicly tied to sensational stories of madness, murder and degeneracy; recently re-legalized, it has developed a passionate contemporary fan base.

Tonight, absinthe devotee Ronni Thomas will deliver an illustrated lecture on the history of absinthe and other great elixirs of fin de siècle Paris--such as green chartreuse, armagnac, and ricard--complete with artwork and video excerpts; he will also screen his own contribution to the absinthe mythos: a promotional video he produced for contemporary absinthe maker Le Tourment Vert. Liquor samples for tasting will also be available throughout the evening, including complimentary absinthe from our sponsor La Fée. There will also a Francophile music-filled after party. It will be a night straight out of Brassaï's Paris right in the heart of Brooklyn.

Ronni Thomas filmmaker and creator of The Midnight Archive web series is an avid drinker who appreciates both the history of antique spirits and the effects they have on his self esteem. Incidentally, his favorite absinthe is tonight's sponsor La Fée.
Image: "La Muse Verte" (The Green Muse), Albert Maignan, 1895

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here.

Decadent Paris Weekend (with Complementary Absinthe!): Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory Tonight and Tomorrow Night!

2011-11-11T08:10:00.000-05:00

This weekend, you are cordially invited to join Morbid Anatomy at Observatory for a "Decadent Paris Weekend" comprised of two amazing lectures devoted to cornerstones of fin de siècle Paris--Grand Guignol horror theatre and diabolical liquors--augmented by complimentary absinthe (!!!) provided by our weekend's sponsor La Fée Absinthe.

Night one--Friday November 11th--of our weekend will feature one of my alltime favorite rogue scholars and public speakers, Mel Gordon, delivering an illustrated lecture on The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962. Copies of his out-of-print and groundbreaking book by the same name will be on hand, substantially discounted and available for signing.

Night two-Friday November 12th--will bring many time Observatory lecturer (1, 2, 3) and Midnight Archive creator Ronni Thomas back to Observatory for an ode to "Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris" in the form of an illustrated lecture, a screening, and a liquor tasting.

You wil find full information below for both events, followed by a list of newly announced events including a lecture on postmortem photography by Stanley Burns, the man who literally wrote the book on the topic; a class by the amazing Laura Splan on Dissection as Studio Practice; a lecture on the cultural history of 3D images in full 3D (glasses provided!); and an Oddities season launch party and viewing marathon MCed by the ever charming Lord Whimsy.

Hope to see you at some or all of these fantastic events!

The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962
Illustrated lecture/booksigning with author and scholar Mel Gordon
Date: Friday, November 11th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise
***Signed copies of Gordon's long out-of-print Grand Guiginol will be available for sale at $30 (copies generally go for $60-150)

Decadent Paris Weekend Event # 1 (For Decadent Paris Event #2, Click here)

Hidden among the decadence and sleaze of Pigalle with its roughnecks and whores, in the shadows of a quiet, cobbled alleyway, stands a little theatre... --"Grand Guignol: The French Theatre or Horror," Hand and Wilson

From its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris and through its decline in the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol--literally "grand puppet show"--gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear. Its infamous productions featured innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society. By dissecting primal taboos in an unprecedentedly graphic manner, the Grand Guignol became the progenitor of all the blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking "splatter" movies of today.

Tonight, join Professor Mel Gordon--author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror--to learn about the largely forgotten history of the Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in this heavily-illustrated and highly engaging lecture.

Mel Gordon is the author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, 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 Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.
Image: Grand Guignol Poster, from the collection of Mel Gordon
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris: Lecture and Tasting
Illustrated lecture and liquor tasting with film maker Ronni Thomas
Date: Saturday, November 12th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise

Decadent Paris Weekend Event # 2 (For Decadent Paris Event #1, Click here)

On Saturday November 12th, join Ronni Thomas and Observatory for an exploration of the exotic and often diabolic liquids of France's antiquity featuring absinthe, a liquor known in fin de siècle Paris as "the green fairy" for its bewitching allure and poetically transporting nature. Among history's most infamous and romanticized liquors, absinthe became a symbol of decadence and was drink of choice of such bohemian luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Vincent van Gogh, Alfred Jarry, Édouard Manet, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso. By 1915, it was widely banned after having been publicly tied to sensational stories of madness, murder and degeneracy; recently re-legalized, it has developed a passionate contemporary fan base.

Tonight, absinthe devotee Ronni Thomas will deliver an illustrated lecture on the history of absinthe and other great elixirs of fin de siècle Paris--such as green chartreuse, armagnac, and ricard--complete with artwork and video excerpts; he will also screen his own contribution to the absinthe mythos: a promotional video he produced for contemporary absinthe maker Le Tourment Vert. Liquor samples for tasting will also be available throughout the evening, including complimentary absinthe from our sponsor La Fée. There will also a Francophile music-filled after party. It will be a night straight out of Brassaï's Paris right in the heart of Brooklyn.

Ronni Thomas filmmaker and creator of The Midnight Archive web series is an avid drinker who appreciates both the history of antique spirits and the effects they have on his self esteem. Incidentally, his favorite absinthe is tonight's sponsor La Fée.
Image: "La Muse Verte" (The Green Muse), Albert Maignan, 1895

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours This Weekend, 12:30-6

2011-11-08T13:32:00.000-05:00

This weekend--Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th--the Morbid Anatomy Library--pictured above--will have open hours from 12:30 until 6 PM. So feel free to drop in for a perusal of the stacks and to meet our latest addition.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here.

Photo of The Library by Shannon Taggart

Decadent Paris Weekend (with Complementary Absinthe!): Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory, This Week and Beyond

2011-11-07T09:03:00.001-05:00

This weekend, you are cordially invited to join Morbid Anatomy at Observatory for a "Decadent Paris Weekend" comprised of two amazing lectures devoted to cornerstones of fin de siècle Paris--Grand Guignol horror theatre and diabolical liquors--augmented by complimentary absinthe (!!!) provided by our weekend's sponsor La Fée Absinthe.

Night one--Friday November 11th--of our weekend will feature one of my alltime favorite rogue scholars and public speakers, Mel Gordon, delivering an illustrated lecture on The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962. Copies of his out-of-print and groundbreaking book by the same name will be on hand, substantially discounted and available for signing.

Night two-Friday November 12th--will bring many time Observatory lecturer (1, 2, 3) and Midnight Archive creator Ronni Thomas back to Observatory for an ode to "Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris" in the form of an illustrated lecture, a screening, and a liquor tasting.

You wil find full information below for both events, followed by a list of newly announced events including a lecture on postmortem photography by Stanley Burns, the man who literally wrote the book on the topic; a class by the amazing Laura Splan on Dissection as Studio Practice; a lecture on the cultural history of 3D images in full 3D (glasses provided!); and an Oddities season launch party and viewing marathon MCed by the ever charming Lord Whimsy.

Hope to see you at some or all of these fantastic events!

The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962
Illustrated lecture/booksigning with author and scholar Mel Gordon
Date: Friday, November 11th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise
***Signed copies of Gordon's long out-of-print Grand Guiginol will be available for sale at $30 (copies generally go for $60-150)

Decadent Paris Weekend Event # 1 (For Decadent Paris Event #2, Click here)

Hidden among the decadence and sleaze of Pigalle with its roughnecks and whores, in the shadows of a quiet, cobbled alleyway, stands a little theatre... --"Grand Guignol: The French Theatre or Horror," Hand and Wilson

From its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris and through its decline in the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol--literally "grand puppet show"--gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear. Its infamous productions featured innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society. By dissecting primal taboos in an unprecedentedly graphic manner, the Grand Guignol became the progenitor of all the blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking "splatter" movies of today.

Tonight, join Professor Mel Gordon--author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror--to learn about the largely forgotten history of the Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in this heavily-illustrated and highly engaging lecture.

Mel Gordon is the author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, 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 Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.
Image: Grand Guignol Poster, from the collection of Mel Gordon
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris: Lecture and Tasting
Illustrated lecture and liquor tasting with film maker Ronni Thomas
Date: Saturday, November 12th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise

Decadent Paris Weekend Event # 2 (For Decadent Paris Event #1, Click here)

On Saturday November 12th, join Ronni Thomas and Observatory for an exploration of the exotic and often diabolic liquids of France's antiquity featuring absinthe, a liquor known in fin de siècle Paris as "the green fairy" for its bewitching allure and poetically transporting nature. Among history's most infamous and romanticized liquors, absinthe became a symbol of decadence and was drink of choice of such bohemian luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Vincent van Gogh, Alfred Jarry, Édouard Manet, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso. By 1915, it was widely banned after having been publicly tied to sensational stories of madness, murder and degeneracy; recently re-legalized, it has developed a passionate contemporary fan base.

Tonight, absinthe devotee Ronni Thomas will deliver an illustrated lecture on the history of absinthe and other great elixirs of fin de siècle Paris--such as green chartreuse, armagnac, and ricard--complete with artwork and video excerpts; he will also screen his own contribution to the absinthe mythos: a promotional video he produced for contemporary absinthe maker Le Tourment Vert. Liquor samples for tasting will also be available throughout the evening, including complimentary absinthe from our sponsor La Fée. There will also a Francophile music-filled after party. It will be a night straight out of Brassaï's Paris right in the heart of Brooklyn.

Ronni Thomas filmmaker and creator of The Midnight Archive web series is an avid drinker who appreciates both the history of antique spirits and the effects they have on his self esteem. Incidentally, his favorite absinthe is tonight's sponsor La Fée.
Image: "La Muse Verte" (The Green Muse), Albert Maignan, 1895

And also:

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand. *** SOLD OUT; email morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to wait list (November 15:)
“No Computer Is An Island” : PowerPoint Film with Live Musical Accompaniment (November 19)
Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand. *** SOLD OUT; email morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be added to wait list (November 29)
Photographing the Dead: The History of Postmortem Photography from The Burns Collection and Archive: Illustrated Lecture and book signing with Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS (December 5)
The Missing Dimension: The Missing Dimension: A Cultural History of 3D Images - Anaglyphs, Stereographs, View-Masters, Holograms, and Flaming Arrows Coming Right at You!: Illustrated lecture on and in 3D (glasses provided) by artist and NYU Professor Chris Muller (December 13)
"Oddities" Marathon and Season Launch Party: Screening of TV's "Oddities" followed by after party with MC Lord Whimsy, giveaways, special drinks, and DJ (December 17)
CLASS: Dissection as Studio Practice: Lecture and Studio Art Class with artist Laura Splan *** Class size is limited; Must RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com (January 8)
The Search for Granny-Dump Mountain: Illustrated lecture by Journalist Justin Nobel (January 26)
Class: Mummification: Learn the art and ritual of animal mummification with instructor Sorceress Cagliastro *** Limited Class Size; Please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com (January 29)

More on Observatory can be found here. To sign up for events on Facebook, join our group by clicking here. To sign up for our weekly mailer, click here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours This Sunday, November 6

2011-11-04T12:50:00.000-04:00

This Sunday November 6th, the Morbid Anatomy Library--pictured above--will have open hours from 12 until 6 PM. So feel free to drop in for a perusal of the stacks and to meet our newest addition.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here.

Photo of The Library by Shannon Taggart

NetherWorld: A Morality Vaudeville, The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre and ClockWorks Puppetry Studio, Through Saturday

2011-11-03T19:07:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow and Saturday night at The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre and ClockWorks Puppetry Studio: NetherWorld: A Morality Vaudeville, the newest production of the very talented and lovely Mr. Jonathan Cross.

Hope to see you there!

NetherWorld: A Morality Vaudeville
The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre and ClockWorks Puppetry Studio
196 Columbia Street Brooklyn, 11231
Thursday to Saturday at 8 PM
Saturdays & Sundays Matinee at 4 PM

The Follies of Humanity… Enacted by Demonic Puppets!
Grimly Comical Vignettes… and Surreal Melodramas!
Journey Beyond the Grave… and Return!

“NetherWorld, A Morality Vaudeville” is a variety show in hell, interwoven with an operetta which tells the tale of the Demon King, Mister Scratch, and his search for an heir to the throne of NetherWorld. It features creepy & surreal marionettes, live sound effects, and an original live score performed on accordian, piano, and toy piano. NetherWorld was an Off-Off Broadway Review Award recipient for one of the Best Performances of 1995.

You can find out more by clicking here.

Amazing Baroque Bone Chapels and Real Life Mad Scientists: Episodes 5 and 6 of The Midnight Archive

2011-11-03T10:42:00.000-04:00

The Midnight Archive, as mentioned previously, is a new web-based documentary series "centered around the esoteric and always exotic personalities that spring from Observatory," the Brooklyn-based event/gallery space I founded a few years ago. The series is created and directed by film-maker Ronni Thomas, who has plans to upload approximately one new episode per week to the new Midnight Archive website.

Episodes five and six of The Midnight Archive--A. Head B. Body and Empire of Death--have just been uploaded is now available for viewing! You can view them above or on The Midnight Archive website.

For more on the series, to see former episodes, or to sign up for the mailing list so as to be alerted to future uploads, visit The Midnight Archive website by clicking here. You can also "like" it on Facebook--and thus be alerted--by clicking here.

"Of Pictures & Specimens: Natural History in Post-Revolutionary and Restoration France," Interdisciplinary Symposium, American Philosophical Society

2011-11-03T08:33:00.000-04:00

Another excellent looking symposium! Free and open to the public:

Of Pictures & Specimens: Natural History in Post-Revolutionary and Restoration France
Interdisciplinary Symposium
December 1 - 3, 2011
American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum, Philadelphia

Of Pictures & Specimens: Natural History in Post-Revolutionary and Restoration France is organized by the APS Museum in conjunction with its current exhibition, Of Elephants & Roses: Encounters with French Natural History, 1790 - 1830. The symposium includes French and American scholars, and addresses key ideas raised by the displays in the exhibition. Included are presentations exploring how Empress Josephine became shepherdess, botanist, and estate manager, how top scientists and artists pictured nature, and how natural science influenced everything from Balzac's novels to the 19th century's romanticized notions of long-lost worlds.

Of Elephants & Roses celebrates the life sciences during a time when Paris was the center of natural history in the Western world. On view are more than sixty objects from France never before seen in the U.S., including Josephine's black swan, gorgeous renderings of flowers on Sèvres porcelain, a mastodon fossil bone sent by Thomas Jefferson to Paris, an herbarium specimen of the flowering Franklinia tree, and everyday objects decorated with charming images of a giraffe who walked 550 miles across France to greet the king.

For information on speakers and program: apsmuseum.org/symposium
For online registration, required by Nov. 28, 2011: apsmuseum.org/registration

SYMPOSIUM IS FREE OF CHARGE
The symposium is made possible through generous funding by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation.

More on this symposium can be found here.

"Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" Exhibition and Symposium, Museum of Jewish Heritage, NYC, Through January 16

2011-11-02T16:01:00.000-04:00

I have long been enthralled with the chilling Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, a catalog for a touring exhibition of the same name organized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I have just found out that this exhibition is now on view right here in New York City, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, through January 16th. If the catalog is any indication, this exhibit is simply not to be missed.

As a further lure, this Sunday, November 6th, the museum is hosting a fascinating looking symposium entitled "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany" preceded by a guided tour of the exhibition.

Full info follows for both exhibition and symposium; hope very much to see you there!

Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race
On view through January 16, 2012
Museum of Jewish Heritage
36 Battery Place, New York City

“Nazism is applied biology.”
— Rudolf Hess, Deputy to Adolf Hitler

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibition, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, examines how the Nazi leadership, in collaboration with individuals in professions traditionally charged with healing and the public good, used science to help legitimize persecution, murder and, ultimately, genocide...

Eugenics theory sprang from turn-of-the-century scientific beliefs asserting that Charles Darwin’s theories of “survival of the fittest” could be applied to humans. Supporters, spanning the globe and political spectrum, believed that through careful controls on marriage and reproduction, a nation’s genetic health could be improved.

The Nazi regime was founded upon the conviction that “inferior” races and individuals had to be eliminated from German society so that the fittest “Aryans” could thrive. The Nazi state fully committed itself to implementing a uniquely racist and antisemitic variation of eugenics to “scientifically” build what it considered to be a “superior race.” By the end of World War II, six million Jews had been murdered. Millions of others also became victims of persecution and murder through Nazi “racial hygiene” programs designed to cleanse Germany of “biological threats” to the nation’s “health,” including “foreign-blooded” Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), persons diagnosed as “hereditarily ill,” and homosexuals. In German-occupied territories, Poles and others belonging to ethnic groups deemed “inferior” were also murdered...

And the symposium:

Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany
Sunday, November 6, 1 P.M.
Prof. Sander Gilman, Emory University; and Prof. Arthur Caplan, University of Pennsylvania; moderated by Museum Director Dr. David G. Marwell

Lectures by Prof. Gilman, a cultural historian who has written on Nazi science, and Prof. Caplan, a leading scholar in the field of medical ethics, will be followed by a conversation about the origins and legacies of Nazi medical practices.

$10, $7 students/seniors, $5 members

Co-presented by FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics). mjhnyc.org/faspe

This program has been made possible by a generous grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany: Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Documentation and Education.

Presented in conjunction with Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race. Tour the exhibition at 12 P.M. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. Call 646.437.4202.

You can find out more about the exhibition by clicking here and more about the symposium by clicking here. You can watch an exhibition overview video by clicking here. You can order a copy of the fantastic catalog by clicking here, or peruse it anytime in The Morbid Anatomy Library.

Images top to bottom:

International Hygiene Exhibition, 1911 promotional poster: The eugenics movement pre-dated Nazi Germany. A 1911 exhibition at the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden included a display on human heredity and ideas to improve it. The exhibition poster features the Enlightenment’s all-seeing eye of God, adapted from the ancient Egyptian “Eye of Ra,” symbolizing fitness or health. Credit: Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin
Students at the Berlin School for the Blind examine racial head models circa 1935. Students were taught Gregor Mendel’s principles of inheritance and the purported application of those laws to human heredity and principles of race. During the Third Reich, German born deaf or blind, like those born with mental illnesses or disabilities, were urged to submit to compulsory sterilization as a civic duty. Credit: Blinden-Museum an der Johann-August-Zeune-Schule fur Blinde, Berlin
Head shots showing various racial types. Most western anthropologists classified people into “races” based on physical traits such as head size and eye, hair and skin color. This classification was developed by Eugen Fischer and published in the 1921 and 1923 editions of Foundations of Human Genetics and Racial Hygiene. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Nazi officials at the “The Miracle of Life” exhibition, German Hygiene Museum, Dresden, 1935. The new Nazi museum leadership asserted that societies resembled organisms that followed the lead of their brains. The most logical social structure was one that saw society as a collective unit, literally a body guided by a strong leader. Credit: National Archives and Records Administration
The head of a Jewish youth was sculpted from wood by the Jewish artist M. Winiarski for German officials in the occupied Polish city of Lodz. Credit: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, Instytut Naukowo-Badawyczy, Warsaw

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand, November 15th and 29th

2011-11-02T09:04:00.001-04:00

I have some very exciting news! Observatory's perennially sold out Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven is back for 2 newly announced classes this November, one on Tuesday the 15th and the other on Tuesday the 29th. For those as-of-yet unfamiliar with Sue's work or the history of anthropomorphic taxidermy, check out the video profile of Sue above, compliments of the always amazing Midnight Archive.

Full details follow for the classes follow; if interested, please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com making sure to specify which date you would like to attend. And these classes are VERY popular and tend to sell out fast, so please RSVP as quickly as possible to secure a slot!

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Susan Jeiven: Back by Popular Demand
Date: Tuesdays November 15th and November 29th
Time: 7 PM-11 PM
Admission: $60
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
***MUST RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com; Class size limited to 15
Anthropomorphic taxidermy--the practice of mounting and displaying taxidermied animals as if they were humans or engaged in human activities--was a popular art form during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The best known practitioner of the art form is British taxidermist Walter Potter who displayed his pieces--which included such elaborate tableaux as The Death of Cock Robin, The Kitten Wedding, and The Kitten Tea Party--in his own museum of curiosities.

On Tuesdays November 15th and 29th, please join Morbid Anatomy and taxidermist, tattoo artist and educator Susan Jeiven for a beginners class in anthropomorphic taxidermy. All materials--including a mouse for each student--will be provided, and each class member will leave at the end of the day with their own anthropomorphic taxidermied mouse. Students are invited to bring any miniature items with which they might like to dress or decorate their new friend; some props and miniature clothing will also be provided by the teacher. A wide variety of sizes and colors of mice will be available.

No former taxidermy experience is required.

Also, some technical notes:

We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
Everyone will be provided with gloves.
All animals are disease free.
Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone.
All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class. All mice used are feeder animals for snakes and lizards and would literally be discarded if not sold.
Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the clas

You can contact Sue with any more questions by clicking here.

You can find out more about both classes by clicking here. You can find out more about The Midnight Archive by clicking here. And again, if interested, please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com making sure to specify which date you would like to attend. Also, please click on image to see much larger version.

Grand Guignol Spectacular: Call for Pieces, Volunteering Opportunities, Save the Date and More!

2011-11-01T10:20:00.001-04:00

The Grand Guignol--posters from which you see above--was a Parisian theatre infamous in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for theatrical productions merging horror and elegance, sex and death, fear and humor. To celebrate my 40th birthday, my very talented friend John Del Gaudio and I are putting together a Grand Guignol-inspired variety show and masquerade after-party on December 10th of this year that will be co-presented by Atlas Obscura and The Coney Island Museum and will take place at the latter.

We have just launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise money for the production, with which we hope to pay participants a modest honorarium for their materials and labor. If you are interested in helping support this laudable endeavor, you can visit our campaign online (and contribute!) by clicking here.

To get inspired, check out our image- and video-rich Grand Guignol mood board (be sure to scroll down and click on thumbnails to see larger images) by clicking here. To learn more about The Grand Guignol, make sure to attend Mel Gordon's absinthe-sponsored lecture on the topic at Observatory next Friday, November 11th! More on that can be found here.

Also, if anyone is interested in pitching a short piece for inclusion, or volunteering their time for costumes, props, acting, etc, please email me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com.

Thanks! And whether you can contribute or not, mark your calendars! I promise this will be a great party; more on that as it develops.

Full text for the call-for-funds follows:

Join our band of curios and support the Grand Guignol Variety Hour at Coney Island Museum on Saturday, December 10th.

THE INSPIRATION
From its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris and through its decline in the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear. Its infamous productions featured innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society. By dissecting primal taboos in an unprecedentedly graphic manner, the Grand Guignol became the progenitor of all the blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking “splatter” movies of today.

THE PROJECT
Presented by Atlas Obscura, Coney Island Museum, and Morbid Anatomy, our event will be a one-night-only ode to The Grand Guignol and its legacy. Our evening of variety theatre will be dedicated to such Guignol-esque and fin de siècle pleasures as the uncanny; spectacular illusions; sex and death, elegance and horror; tableau vivants; occult tinged magic shows; phantasmagoria; hysteria; contortionists; toy theatre; puppets; optical tricks and much more!

Participating artists include Lord Whimsy, Jonny Clockworks, Ronni Thomas, Doll Parts, GF Newland, Sarah Shoerman, Angela Di Carlo and Kathleen Kennedy Tobin, with a special set to be designed by NYU’s Chris Muller. Projects include a toy theater version of Bryusov’s “The Sisters,” a harmonious and creepy rendition of “Dry Bones,” an installation of classic Grand Guignol posters, magic lanterns, horrific film montages, and stagings of classic French and London Grand Guignol plays, all followed by an after-party with records on the victrola and cocktails courtesy of Hendrick’s Gin.

THE NEED
Your donation will go directly to the artists involved, providing them with a small honorarium and production budget for their piece. All donors will receive advance word about buying tickets to the event. There’s a limited capacity so to guarantee yourself a ticket, consider giving at least $100.

PERKS
$20 Contribution
Listing in program with your fellow horror afficionados, advance word on ticket sales to the event.

$100 Contribution
One ticket to the event on December 10th, listing in program

$500 Contribution
Two tickets to the event on December 10th with reserved seats, an old-timey shout out during the show and listing in program
Pledge your support now and get ready to geek out with us.

Joanna Ebenstein & John Del Gaudio
Co-Curators

To find out more and to contribute (thank you!), please click here.

Morbid Anatomy Mummification Class on Time Magazine's Website!

2011-10-31T10:32:00.002-04:00

More video documentation of our extremely popular mummification class at Observatory, this time from Time Magazine's website. And, of course, just in time for Halloween!

Please note: our next mummification class taking place this Sunday, November 6th, has a few open slots. You can find out details by clicking here; you can RSVP for the class by emailing me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com. You can find out more about Observatory and the classes and lectures we offer by clicking here.

Happy Halloween From Morbid Anatomy!

2011-10-31T09:33:00.000-04:00

All images drawn from Rip The Skull's Halloween Poscard Flickr set; you can see the entire fantastic set by clicking here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours This Saturday, October 29

2011-10-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

This Saturday October 29th, the Morbid Anatomy Library--pictured above--will have open hours from 1 until 6 PM. So feel free to drop in for a perusal of the stacks and to meet our newest addition.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library and for directions and other such information, click here.

Photo of The Library by Shannon Taggart

“Metaphor as Illness,” Lecture by Mark Dery, Embodied Fantasies Conference, Sunday October 30

2011-10-28T16:12:00.000-04:00

Mark Dery, one of my favorite all time thinkers and lecturers, will be giving a new presentation this Sunday as part of the amazing looking Embodied Fantasies Conference. Full details, drawn for his Shovelware blog, below; hope to see you there!

Live, from the Cancer Ward!
I’ll be lecturing on “Metaphor as Illness” at the School of Visual Arts this Sunday, at 1:30 P.M., in a double-header with media theorist McKenzie Wark.

Executive Summary: A personal essay—live, from the cancer ward!—that is simultaneously a philosophical investigation into the ways in which disease widens the Cartesian chasm, untethering our thought balloons from the Body in Pain.

Directions, program, list of speakers, HERE.

Teaser: During my recent hospitalization for a medical emergency—an unexpected vacation in hell, during which I had boundless hours to muse about Illness as Metaphor and The Body in Pain—I conceived the essay in question, an essay that simply had to be written, as a meditation on language, embodiment, language as embodiment, and the ontologically dislocating experience of being a patient. Drawing on my five-year tour of duty through ER’s, OR’s, and hospital wards as a cancer patient, the lecture in question combines a cultural criticism reminiscent of Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor with the mordant humor of Christopher Hitchens’s recent reports on his battle with the Big C. It’s a philosophical inquiry into the existential black comedy of being a patient—Burton’s Melancholy of Anatomy , reimagined as an episode of the cynical medical drama House.

It’s also one of the best things I’ve ever written—a closely observed, unsparingly honest, emotionally raw self-anatomization that manages, even so, to be philosophically probing, I think.

You can find out more about the conference and its schedule by clicking here.

Image: The Anatomy lesson of Dr Frederik Ruysch, Jan van Neck (lifted from Wikimedia Commons).

Morbid Anatomy Library on Fox News. Yes, Really.

2011-10-28T10:50:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, Fox News (yes, THAT Fox News) sent over Red Eye host Bill Schulz and former medical examiner of New York Dr. Michael M. Baden for a little filmed visit to the Morbid Anatomy Library. In the course of our time together, we talked about phrenology, body snatching, and mummification. In addition, the very knowledgeable Dr. Baden conducted a thorough and pretty fascinating forensic examination of the newest addition to the library: an early 20th century human skeleton medical preparation, seen in the screen shot above.

You learn all about the skeleton--and watch the segment in its entirety--by clicking here.

Exhibition: "Mechanical Wonders: The Sandoz Collection," Through November 26, 2011

2011-10-27T15:52:00.000-04:00

This exhibit looks truly amazing! Many of the objects, I am told, come only very rarely to The United States, so make sure to take advantage of this opportunity while you can! I will absolutely be making a personal pilgrimage.

"Mechanical Wonders: The Sandoz Collection"
Presented by A La Vieille Russie and Parmigiani
October 26 – November 26, 2011

Visit ALVR this Fall to see a very special loan exhibition of intricate marvels that jump, sing and act as you never believed jeweled creations could.

Featuring early 19th century Swiss gold and enamel automaton snuff boxes, watches, magicians, and animals, the Imperial Swan Egg of 1906 and the Imperial Peacock Egg of 1908 by Fabergé, as well as contemporary interpretations by Parmigiani Fleurier of watches in the Sandoz Collection. In addition, the catalogue raisonné of the collection will be presented for the first time.

EXHIBITION HOURS (beginning October 26):
Monday through Friday 11am-6pm
Thursday 11am-7pm
Saturday 12pm-5pm
Closed for Thanksgiving Day.

Address: 781 Fifth Avenue at 59th Street
New York, NY 10022
212-752-1727
www.alvr.com

You can find out more and purchase tickets by clicking here. Thanks so much to the inspiring Jere Ryder for alerting me to this exhibition!

Amazing Auction Alert: Bonhams "Objects of the Wunderkammer including an Exceptional Private Collection of European Ivories," London

2011-10-27T13:26:00.006-04:00

Wow. Via Artdaily.org:

LONDON.- On Wednesday 2 November, to coincide with Halloween, Bonhams will hold its first sale dedicated to the Wunderkammer, also known as the ’Kunstkammer’ or ‘cabinet of curiosities’, a collection of fine objects created from the rarest and most exquisite materials and designed to induce excitement and wonder in the viewer.

Comprising works of art ranging from ivory figures and reliefs, early and rare bronzes, fine enamels, chalices and caskets, the Wunderkammer brought together objects produced from the most expensive and highly prized materials of the day, including ivory, tortoiseshell, rhino horn, enamel and gilt bronze.

This unique, one-off sale features one hundred and thirty ivory carvings, including a very spooky South German skull (estimate £10,000 – 15,000); an eerie 17th century anatomical model of an eye (estimate £4,000 – 6,000); and a gruesome relief depicting the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (estimate £10,000 – 15,000). The top lot is a rare collection of forty four mid 18th century ivory intaglios of Roman Emperors, which has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £20,000 – 30,000. ...

You can read the full article on Artdaily.org by clicking here. You can find out more about the auction by clicking here.

Images of lots, top to bottom:
1) Lot No: 225
An 18th / 19th century North European carved and painted wood skull
possibly from a large crucifixion group, 14cm high

Estimate: £500 - 700, € 580 - 810

2) A rare South German anatomical model of an eye
probably late 17th century
composed of ten individual sections including an iris, pupil, and a section painted with veins, with a turned handle to the reverse and on a turned ivory spiralling stem and foot, together with a small 17th century circular carved wood and painted box which the eye fits into when disassembled, glass lense repaired, the ivory 8.5cm high, the box 8cm diameter (2)

Estimate: £6,000 - 8,000, € 6,900 - 9,200

Footnote:
The exquisite workmanship combined with the use of a rare and prized material in this miniature model of a human eye are typical of the objects that were collected and displayed in the Wunderkammer. Detailed models of eyes, as well as skulls and skeletons that are now associated with the Wunderkammer, were produced from the 17th century onwards and originally conceived as anatomical teaching tools. Ivory carvers such as Stephan Zick (1639-1715) and Johann Martin Teuber were influenced by the anatomical drawings of Andrea Vesalius in the mid 16th century and later George Bartisch who produced a manuscript relating to the eye in 1583. For a similar anatomical model of an eye, see Christies, London, December 4 2008, lot 75.

3) Lot No: 174Y
An 18th century South German ivory skull
carved with an entwined crown of thorns, with a snake above, later mounted on a perspex rectangular plinth, the ivory 10.5cm high

Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000, € 11,000 - 17,000

Footnote:
For a comparable ivory skull see the Robert and Angelique Noortman Collection: Paintings and Works of Art from Chateau De Groote Mot, sold at Sotheby's, Amsterdam, December 17, 2007, lot 557.
A similar skull monogrammed by Josef Konrad Wiser (1693-1760) but lacking the snake was sold at Sotheby's, London, July 9, 2008, lot 92, £37,250.

Voodoo Medicinal Panels, Wellcome Collection

2011-10-21T08:44:00.000-04:00

6 paintings : acrylic on wood ; wood of each painting ca. 122 x 66 cm.
Contents 1. "Gono"
2. "Male genital organ", "Female genital organ"
3. "Breast cancer"
4. "Syphilis"
5. "Eye", "Fistula", "Sore"
6. "Pregnant woman"

Credits On verso of no. 5, painted name: "Anan Antoine"

Summary Salvaged in August 2010, the six panels formed the walls of the shack of a vodoo (voodoo, vodou, vodun) practitioner in the town of Adjarra. The town is about one hour's drive from Porto Novo, the capital city of Benin, on a mud road towards the Nigerian border. The population attends a flourishing vodoo market where medical practitioners have dried animal parts, carved statuettes and other fetishistic items available for medicinal purposes. The paintings advertise the diseases and parts of the body which the practitioner offers to cure through sorcery and animal sacrifices that call upon the spirit world

Read more about these remarkable panels voodoo panels in the amazing Wellcome Collection by clicking here.

"From the Magnificent to the Macabre: Send-Offs for the Dead," Tonight at Observatory!

2011-10-20T08:01:00.000-04:00

Tonight at Observatory! Hope very much to see you there.

From the Magnificent to the Macabre: Send-Offs for the Dead
Illustrated talk and book signing with Sarah Murray, author of Making an Exit
Date: Tonight, Thursday, October 20th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5 Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Thematic DJed after-party will follow the lecture; Books will be also available for sale and signing

Sending off the dead is something mankind does spectacularly well. There’s perhaps no human condition to which more attention has been devoted—faced with death, we create elaborate ceremonies and build great architectural edifices. We bury our loved ones in the ground or burn them in fire. We leave corpses as carrion for the birds, hang them in trees, or stow them in caves. We arrange for riderless horses to accompany the cortege to the cemetery or toss the remains of our fellows into sacred rivers amid the sound of bells and the swirl of incense.

In researching her latest book, Making an Exit (St Martin’s Press), Sarah Murray traveled the world in search of the best send offs. She will describe her encounters with everything from a spectacular Balinese royal cremation and a chandelier in the Czech Republic made entirely from human bones to the American death care industry’s biggest road show and a ghoulish Sicilian crypt where mummified corpses line the walls. Join Sarah for an engaging and highly personal discussion in which she will also present some of the unusual objects and artifacts she collected on her travels (she might even tell you about the plans for her own eventual send off).

Sarah Murray’s new book is Making an Exit: From the Magnificent to the Macabre—How We Dignify the Dead (St Martin’s Press, October 2011). She is also author of Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (St Martin’s Press 2007, Picador 2008). A longtime Financial Times contributor and freelance writer, she lives in New York City.

Skull Fracture with Hematoma, ca 1700

2011-10-19T08:47:00.000-04:00

Citation (unconfirmed) reads: skull fracture with hematoma, ca. 1700

Found here.

19th Century Horror Theatre! An Ode to Absinthe and her Kin! COMPLEMENTARY ABSINTHE!!! Decadent Paris Weekend at Observatory, November 11-12

2011-10-18T13:36:00.001-04:00

I am super excited to announce the newly announced Decadent Paris Weekend at Observatory. Night one will feature author and scholar Mel Gordon, one of the best speakers we have ever had at Observatory, presenting a heavily-illustrated and highly-engaging lecture on the largely forgotten history of The Parisian Grand Guignol Theatre (1897-1962). Night two will feature Observatory favorite--and Midnight Archive director--Ronni Thomas for an alcohol-drenched and image-heavy ode to absinthe and her kin. Both events will be supplied with free absinthe (!!!) compliments of La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise.

These are both going to be events not to miss. Hope very much to see you there!

The Grand Guignol: Parisian Theatre of Fear and Terror 1897-1962
Illustrated lecture/booksigning with author and scholar Mel Gordon
Date: Friday, November 11th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
***Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise
***Signed copies of Gordon's long out-of-print Grand Guiginol will be available for sale at $30 (copies generally go for $60-150)

Hidden among the decadence and sleaze of Pigalle with its roughnecks and whores, in the shadows of a quiet, cobbled alleyway, stands a little theatre... --"Grand Guignol: The French Theatre or Horror," Hand and Wilson

From its beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris and through its decline in the 1960s, the Theatre of the Grand Guignol--literally "grand puppet show"--gleefully celebrated horror, sex, and fear. Its infamous productions featured innocent victims, mangled beauty, insanity, mutilation, humour, sex, and monstrous depravity in a heady mix that attracted throngs of thrill-seekers from all echelons of society. By dissecting primal taboos in an unprecedentedly graphic manner, the Grand Guignol became the progenitor of all the blood-spilling, eye-gouging, and limb-hacking "splatter" movies of today.

Tonight, join Professor Mel Gordon--author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror--to learn about the largely forgotten history of the Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in this heavily-illustrated and highly engaging lecture.

Mel Gordon is the author of Grand Guiginol: Theatre of Fear and Terror, Voluptious Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin, 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 Horizontal Collaboration: The Erotic World of Paris, 1920-1946. He also teaches directing, acting, and history of theater at University of California at Berkeley.

Absinthe and Other Liquors of Fin de Siècle Paris: Lecture and Tasting
Illustrated lecture and liquor tasting with film maker Ronni Thomas
Date: Saturday, November 12th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
***Complimentary absinthe provided by our sponsor La Fée Absinthe, the first traditional absinthe distilled in France since the 1915 ban and is the only absinthe endorsed by the Musée de l'Absinthe, Auvers-sur-Oise

On Saturday November 12th, join Ronni Thomas and Observatory for an exploration of the exotic and often diabolic liquids of France's antiquity featuring absinthe, a liquor known in fin de siècle Paris as "the green fairy" for its bewitching allure and poetically transporting nature. Among history's most infamous and romanticized liquors, absinthe became a symbol of decadence and was drink of choice of such bohemian luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Vincent van Gogh, Alfred Jarry, Édouard Manet, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso. By 1915, it was widely banned after having been publicly tied to sensational stories of madness, murder and degeneracy; recently re-legalized, it has developed a passionate contemporary fan base.

Tonight, absinthe devotee Ronni Thomas will deliver an illustrated lecture on the history of absinthe and other great elixirs of fin de siècle Paris--such as green chartreuse, armagnac, and ricard--complete with artwork and video excerpts; he will also screen his own contribution to the absinthe mythos: a promotional video he produced for contemporary absinthe maker Le Tourment Vert. Liquor samples for tasting will also be available throughout the evening, including complimentary absinthe from our sponsor La Fée. There will also a Francophile music-filled after party. It will be a night straight out of Brassaï's Paris right in the heart of Brooklyn.

Ronni Thomas filmmaker and creator of The Midnight Archive web series is an avid drinker who appreciates both the history of antique spirits and the effects they have on his self esteem. Incidentally, his favorite absinthe is tonight's sponsor La Fée.
Image: "La Muse Verte" (The Green Muse), Albert Maignan, 1895

To be alerted to future events, "like" Morbid Anatomy on Facebook by clicking here or sign up for the Observatory mailer by clicking here. More on all events here. You can find out more about these events by clicking here.

Comparative Death Rituals; Halloween and Day of the Dead Costume Party; A "Dead Animal Man: This week at Observatory!

2011-10-16T18:16:00.001-04:00

This week and beyond at Observatory; hope very much to see you there!

"A Dead Animal Man": Screening and Q & A with Film Maker Lily Henderson
Date: Monday, October 17th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

"A Dead Animal Man" is a new documentary film which profiles Nate Hill, public attention seeker and self-proclaimed rogue taxidermist, as he sets out to make A.D.A.M--A Dead Animal Man--from various animal parts gathered from NYC's Chinatown dumpsters. This film details Hill's quest from conception to completion, and contains vignettes ranging from the humourous to the bizarre to the extremely grotesque. At the end, Hill's desire for stardom is realized, but for what? The film saves us from extreme nausea but still pushes us far enough to the point where we ask ourselves--how far is too far?

Tonight, join us for a 25 minute sneak peak version of the film. Filmmakers will be in attendance to answer questions. Barf bags not included.

Lily Henderson is a filmmaker living in Brooklyn. She is an active member of the the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective and recently released Lessons for the Living - a film about why certain people choose to spend their free time with dying strangers. More information can be found here. Henderson and her co-producer, Lila Dobbs, found Nate Hill's story intriguing but not because of the spectacle he was creating. Their goal was to find the deeper meaning in his public persona and the decaying Frankenstein body next to him.

From the Magnificent to the Macabre: Send-Offs for the Dead
Illustrated talk and book signing with Sarah Murray, author of Making an Exit
Date: Thursday, October 20th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5 Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Thematic DJed after-party will follow the lecture; Books will be also available for sale and signing

Sending off the dead is something mankind does spectacularly well. There’s perhaps no human condition to which more attention has been devoted—faced with death, we create elaborate ceremonies and build great architectural edifices. We bury our loved ones in the ground or burn them in fire. We leave corpses as carrion for the birds, hang them in trees, or stow them in caves. We arrange for riderless horses to accompany the cortege to the cemetery or toss the remains of our fellows into sacred rivers amid the sound of bells and the swirl of incense.

In researching her latest book, Making an Exit (St Martin’s Press), Sarah Murray traveled the world in search of the best send offs. She will describe her encounters with everything from a spectacular Balinese royal cremation and a chandelier in the Czech Republic made entirely from human bones to the American death care industry’s biggest road show and a ghoulish Sicilian crypt where mummified corpses line the walls. Join Sarah for an engaging and highly personal discussion in which she will also present some of the unusual objects and artifacts she collected on her travels (she might even tell you about the plans for her own eventual send off).

Sarah Murray’s new book is Making an Exit: From the Magnificent to the Macabre—How We Dignify the Dead (St Martin’s Press, October 2011). She is also author of Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (St Martin’s Press 2007, Picador 2008). A longtime Financial Times contributor and freelance writer, she lives in New York City.
Image: Capuchin Catacombs in Sicily, photo by the author

Halloween and Day of the Dead Party with New Episodes of Ghoul A Go-Go and The Midnight Archive, Costume Contest, Music, and More!
Date: Saturday, October 22
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $12
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Borderline Projects

Please join us on Saturday, October 22 for a Halloween/Day of the Dead costume party featuring brand new episodes of Ghoul A Go-Go and The Midnight Archive, as well as burlesque, music, piñata, food, beverages, sugar skulls, a costume contest, and more! Please, please (!!!) come in costume! All costumes welcomed!

The night's amusements will include:

ENTERTAINMENT!

Ghoul a Go Go: Premiere of a brand new episode
The Midnight Archive: Two new episodes of The Midnight Archive, Ronni Thomas' new web series based on Observatory
Music: Wavy gravy Halloween music for the all night dance party
Burlesque: A creepy Burlesque performance by Lil' Miss Lixx

FOOD AND DRINK!

Traditional Food and Drink Specials throughout the evening

COSTUME CONTEST!

Prizes for costumes inspired by either Vlad, Creighton, The Invisible Man, or any of the clips featured on Ghoul a Go Go

TRADITIONAL DAY OF THE DEAD ATTRACTIONS!

Day of the Dead Altar: Altar de Muertos, an installation by Rebeca and Salvador Olguin celebrating Mexico and its past, history and culture
Face painting: Have the Kiss of Death painted on your face by La Catrina
Pan de Muerto: Indulge in this traditional dessert called Bread of Death
Piñata: Dash death to smithereens with our annual death piñata!
Sugar skulls: Decorate and eat or bring home your own Day of the Dead sugar skull
Offerings to the Departed: In some places in Mexico, people leave small, coffin-like figures out for the souls of the departed. Guests are invited to leave their own offering; they will be available at the installation

Image: El Jarabe en Ultratumba (The Folk Dance Beyond the Grave), Jose Guadalupe Posada
October 24: Freaks and Pornography: Victorian Popular Anatomy Museums, Sex and the Unusual Body: Illustrated talk with author Sarah Kathryn York
November 6: Class: Mummification: Learn the art and ritual of animal mummification with instructor Sorceress Cagliastro *** Limited Class Size; Please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com

Postcards of the Taxidermic Tableaux of Walter Potter

2011-10-13T08:53:00.001-04:00

3 postcards of the taxidermic tableaux of Herr Walter Potter, found on the Wunderkammer Tumblr.

On a related note, Morbid Anatomy now has in stock several more copies of Pat Morris' definitive illustrated books on Walter Potter and the history of taxidermy. More on those books here; you can order copies of them by clicking here.

"The Wellcome at 75," Financial Times Magazine, Article and Slide Shows

2011-10-13T08:27:00.000-04:00

...you can’t grasp the Wellcome collection unless you can see the poetry in it. But until quite recently, the irrepressible curiosities and juxtapositions that make the collection captivating were regarded as an irrelevance, an embarrassment and a confounded nuisance to the people charged with putting it in order. When Henry Wellcome displayed his collection for the first time, he decreed that the museum should be “strictly professional and scientific in character”. His collection has resisted successfully ever since...

From the article "The Wellcome at 75" by Marek Kohn in the Financial Times magazine. You can read the full article--from which the above was excerpted--by clicking here. You can view the complete slideshows--from which the above images are drawn--by clicking here and here. Click on images to see much larger images.

Thanks to the afore mentioned Ross Macfarlane for bringing this article to my attention!

Image captions top to bottom:

Models of human skulls in ivory, silver and wood
A pair of phrenological busts, 1821
Tattoos. Wellcome acquired 300 tattoos collected by a Paris surgeon who was active in the late 19th century. They are kept in boxes for fear that they were treated with toxic chemicals
Ivory anatomical figures, 17th-18th century
Roman votives. Romans would offer models of afflicted body parts to a god to beg or give thanks for cures. The model on the left is also Roman but was not one of these votive offerings. It came from Pompeii, where it may have adorned a shop front
Wax model of decomposing body in coffin, Italian, late 1700s
Plaster death mask of Victorian murderer James Bloomfield Rush
Stuffed coiled snake, 1897
Chinese porcelain fruit containing couple in sexual foreplay

"From Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett's Folklore Collection," Lecture by Ross MacFarlane, The Wellcome Collection, November 10

2011-10-12T19:07:00.000-04:00

Oh, if only I lived in London... November 10th at The Wellcome Collection:

From Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett's Folklore Collection
Speaker: Ross MacFarlane, Research Officer, Wellcome Library.
Date: 10 November 2011, 15.00 - 16.00
Cost: This event is FREE. Reserve 90 minutes prior to start.

Explore the world of Edward Lovett, whose collection of amulets and curious objects lies at the heart of the 'Charmed Life' exhibition, through the Wellcome Library's archives.

You can pick up your free ticket for this event from the Information Point from 13.30 on the day. Tickets are issued on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please put coats and bags in the cloakroom to the rear of the foyer before meeting your guide, on the third floor, ten minutes before the event begins.

You can find out more by clicking here.

The Midnight Archive Episode 4: The Automata

2011-10-12T15:18:00.000-04:00

The Midnight Archive--the new web-based video documentary series "centered around the esoteric and always exotic personalities that spring from Observatory"--has just launched a fantastic new episode, this one based the amazing Guinness Collection of Automata at the Morris Museum; you can view it above by clicking play.

Here is what Ronni Thomas, the film maker behind the series, has to say about this particular episode:

Tucked away, in a quiet and pleasant suberb of New Jersey, there exists one of the most fascinating collections of artistic engineering ever collected. The collection belonged to Murtogh Guinness, of the Guinness brewing company. Its contents are, what I can only describe as the early days of robotics, engineered for our ancestor’s entertainment. Dolls that perform incredible tasks, full orchestras in the middle of your parlor, and my favorite of course, a banjo that plays itself. The collection is maintained and managed by Jere Ryder who began his interest at a very early age. He is now entrusted to the collection at the Morris Museum located in Morristown New Jersey. Keep your eyes on the Brooklyn Observatory as they occasionally take a field trip out. The museum is located at 6 Normandy Heights Road Morristown, NJ and well worth the trip if you are nearby - Jere is not only very knowledgeable on the subject but also a fantastic tour guide... Thanks a ton, Mr. Ryder, we’ll see you soon no doubt!

For more on the series, to see former episodes, or to sign up for the mailing list so as to be alerted to future uploads, visit The Midnight Archive website by clicking here. You can also "like" it on Facebook--and thus be alerted--by clicking here. To find out more about Observatory, click here. To find out more about the Guinness collection at the Morris Museum, click here. There is also a wonderful, highly illustrated catalog for this exhibition, which Morbid Anatomy distributes. More on that here.

PS. To see brand new episodes of The Midnight Archive on the big screen and to meet the filmmaker, please come to the Observatory Halloween/Day of the Dead/Screening party! Click here for more on that.

Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory, Open Studios, This Weekend 12-6!

2011-10-11T15:04:00.000-04:00

This weekend, October 15th and 16th, please join the Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory as we join dozens of other Gowanus-based galleries and artist studios in opening our spaces to the public for the Gowanus Artists Studio Tour, or "A.G.A.S.T."

Following are the full details: Hope to see you there!

Gowanus Artists Studio Tour (A.G.A.S.T.)
Saturday October 15th and Sunday October 16th 12-6
543 Union Street at Nevins, Brooklyn
Free and Open to the Public

Directions: Enter the Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory via Proteus Gowanus Gallery

R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Gallery is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to the second door on the left.

You can find out more information about A.G.A.S.T., and get a full list of participants, by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory and the exhibition now on view by clicking here.

Photo of The Morbid Anatomy Library by Shannon Taggart.

Valerie Hammond, 21st Century

2011-10-11T13:12:00.000-04:00

I just stumbled upon the lovely wax and nature print artwork of artist Valerie Hammond. You can see more of her work by visiting her gallery website by clicking here. All images are drawn from this website.

Via the Phantasmaphile Tumblr.

Wellcome Object of the Month: Hair Mourning Jewelry

2011-10-11T12:45:00.000-04:00

It is easy to miss these four little brooches, tucked away as they are in the far corner of Medicine Man alongside Egyptian canopic jars, mortuary crosses and even a shrunken head. But these examples of European mourning jewellery demonstrate an ambiguity at the heart of Henry Wellcome’s collection – the potential for the human subject to become material object after death.

Medicine Man is full of curios serving as literal or metaphorical extensions of the human body, and, like most medical collections, also features artefacts formerly part of the body itself. These brooches are no exception, each containing samples of human hair, neatly arranged and set behind glass.

Hair is certainly a material that occupies the narrow ground between person and thing – in life as much as death. Although it is ‘dead’ matter (as only the follicle contains living cells), once separated from the body, our hair is capable of outlasting us. These qualities of durability, alongside the fact that it is easily removed from the body and can be manipulated into almost any shape, led to the widespread use of hair in the 18th and 19th centuries as a tangible way to remember an absent loved one. Encased in a locket, ring or brooch, a lock of hair stood in for the recently departed, whose memory, it was hoped, would endure for as long as the jewellery itself.

But detached hair, alienated from its natural location on the body, can also provoke disgust – a reaction any of us who have found a stray hair in our food can identify with. The anthropologist Mary Douglas proposed that any ‘matter out of place’, including hair, becomes dirt, posing the threat of chaos and disorder unless carefully gathered and contained (1966)...

Read the full story from which the above image and text are excerpted on the Wellcome Collection blog by clicking here.

Image: Mourning brooches containing the hair of a deceased relative. Wellcome Images

Mask of Empress Eugenie of France, Edouard Wellin, 1867

2011-10-11T12:21:00.000-04:00

Mask of Empress Eugenie of France surrounded with flowers and made with real hair (1867) – Edouard Wellin

Image and unverified citation found here.

"The Empire of Death: Spectacular Ossuaries and Relics in the 16th and 17th Centuries," Lecture and Book Signing: This Thursday at Observatory!

2011-10-11T10:54:00.001-04:00

This Thursday at Observatory! Hope very much to see you there,.

The Empire of Death: Spectacular Ossuaries and Relics in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Lecture and book signing with Dr. Paul Koudounaris, author of The Empire of Death
Date: This Thursday, October 13
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Atlas Obscura
** Books will be available for sale and signing
For five years, Dr. Paul Koudounaris has traveled the world to document a largely overlooked history: the decoration of religious shrines with human bones and remains in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His newly published book The Empire of Death (Thames and Hudson) presents a collection of Koudounaris' photographs and texts chronicling these incredible sites, many of which are not open to the public and have never before been photographed.

The research for this unique book took the author to over 70 preserved charnel houses and skeletal shrines on four continents to document the once common use of human remains for the veneration of the dead in Christian culture. Among other tribulations, in the course of completing his research, the author was pursued by malevolent spirits, handcuffed to a table in a striptease bar by a prurient monk, forced to undergo a religious pilgrimage and exorcism, and arrested by the Austrian police.

Tonight, join Dr. Koudounarishis for an illustrated talk in which he will provide historical insights into the sites and people who created these marvelous objects and spaces, a discussion of the veneration of the dead in Christian culture, and fantastical travel anecdotes, all illustrated by his breathtaking photographs of these unforgettable artifacts.

Paul Koudounaris received a PhD in Art History from UCLA in 2006, which a specialty in the Baroque. He has taught at major universities in the Los Angeles area, and has written for dozens of magazines and newspapers in several countries, specializing in articles about veneration of the dead.

You can find out more--and get directions to Observatory--by clicking here. To find out more about the beautifully designed and richly illustrated book--and order a copy for yourself!--click here.

Dream Anatomy Video

2011-10-08T10:32:00.001-04:00

The interior of our bodies is hidden to us. What happens beneath the skin is mysterious, fearful, amazing. In antiquity, the body's internal structure was the subject of speculation, fantasy, and some study, but there were few efforts to represent it in pictures. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century-and the cascade of print technologies that followed-helped to inspire a new spectacular science of anatomy, and new spectacular visions of the body. Anatomical imagery proliferated, detailed and informative but also whimsical, surreal, beautiful, and grotesque — a dream anatomy that reveals as much about the outer world as it does the inner self. --Introduction to Michael Sappol's Dream Anatomy exhibition

I have just stumbled upon a really nice video based on the now-legendary Dream Anatomy exhibition at the National Library of Medicine, curated by friend and friend-of-the-blog Michael Sappol. To check out--and purchase a copy of!--the beautifully illustrated and provocatively insightful catalog for the exhibition, click here.

Found on Street Anatomy.

Oddities TV Show Seeking Los Angeles Based Collectors for Future Episodes!

2011-10-07T11:33:00.002-04:00

Calling any LA, California based collectors of Oddities! We would love to feature you on the show! Send the producers an email ASAP at Odditiesshow@gmail.com.

This call for collectors just in from Mike Zohn of "Oddities," the Discovery and Science Channel series based on the unrivaled Obscura Antiques and Oddities in New York City. If you are a collector of unusual things based in Los Angeles and interested in appearing on the show--or would like additional information--email Odditiesshow@gmail.com; more about Oddities can be found here.