Must-See Exhibition of Astounding Anatomical Artworks: "Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men," Exhibition, Museum of London, Through April 2013

Whilst over in London recently, I spent a fascinating afternoon with curator Jelena Bekvalac as she guided me through her exhibition "Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men" now on view at the Museum of London. The exhibition is not, I am delighted to report, your average history of medicine fare; it functions more as a must-see exhibition of astounding, idiosyncratic, and beautifully macabre anatomical artworks languishing backstage at London Museums than a straightforward history of human dissection in London. And this is, of course, in my opinion, a good thing!

One of Bekvalac's characteristically brilliant curatorial choices was the inclusion of one of my all-time favorite anatomical artworks, a piece which perfectly illuminates the confounding interweaving of the spectacular, the educational, and the macabre which draws me to many early medical artifacts: the Royal Academy's "Anatomical Crucifixion of James Legg" (top three images). This piece is a plaster life-size écorché--or skinless muscle man figure, a common art trope stretching back to The Renaissance. But this écorché is no mere artistic depiction; instead, it is an actual plaster cast taken directly from the the body of executed murderer James Legg after it was flayed and crucified (!!!) by three members of the Royal Academy around 1801 "... in order to settle an artistic debate...  to prove their belief that most depictions of the Crucifixion were anatomically incorrect." You can find out more about this astounding artifact at this recent blog post.

Other highlights of the exhibition include a fabulous early 19th century Florentine wax anatomical woman on loan from The Science Museum/Wellcome Collection (4th down; more on that piece here); some wonderful Joseph Towne waxes and moulages from The Gordon Museum (8th and 9th down); some of my all-time favorite memento mori figurines, also from The Science Museum/Wellcome Collection (5th down); a handbill advertising the display of an Anatomical Venus on Regent Street in the early 19th century (9th down); an artful preparation of part of a human stomach injected to demonstrate the blood vessels by Edward Jenner (6th down); a salacious late 18th century watercolor entitled 'The Persevering Surgeon' by Thomas Rowlandson (10th down); an original anatomical drawing of a human skeleton for a anatomy student's ticket from 1840 (11th down); a mid-19th century skeletal preparation of a boy, dissected in a somewhat anguished pose (on loan from the St. Bart's Pathology Museum); and a number of anatomical artworks by Jacques Fabien Gautier D'Agoty and other artists of the time.

For any Morbid Anatomy readers in the London area, I highly recommend a visit to this exhibition; thanks to Bekvalac's eye and excellent knowledge of rarely seen and idiosyncratically spectacular pieces backstage in local collections, it is much more interesting than you might expect by the title!

More about the exhibition, from the press release:

Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men
Until 14 April 2013

In 2006, Museum of London archaeologists excavated a burial ground at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. What they found was both extraordinary and unexpected.

The excavation revealed some 262 burials. In the confusing mix of bones was extensive evidence of dissection, autopsy and amputation, bones wired for teaching, and animals dissected for comparative anatomy.

Dating from a key period – that of the Anatomy Act of 1832 – the discovery is one of the most significant in the UK, offering fresh insight into early 19th century dissection and the trade in dead bodies.

Now, 180 years later, you can uncover this intriguing story in Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men, a major new exhibition at the Museum of London. Bringing together human and animal remains, exquisite anatomical models and drawings, documents and original artefacts, the exhibition reveals the intimate relationship between surgeons pushing forward anatomical study and the ‘Resurrection men’ who supplied them; and the shadowy practices prompted by a growing demand for corpses.

You’ll discover the story of Bishop, Williams and May – London’s Burke and Hare – and find out how the excavation findings shed new light on the case of an alleged resurrectionist. You’ll also pore over unrivalled evidence of surgery and amputation – before anaesthetic – and of dissection, anatomical teaching and students practising their craft.  

As the exhibition draws to a close, you’ll be encouraged to debate the Anatomy Act, reflect on medical ethics and cultural attitudes today, and ask what questions still remain.

It may leave you asking: who really owns your body?

This exhibit will be on view through April 14th, 2013; You can find out more here. Please click on images to see larger versions; most are my own; 6th and 11th down are both © Science Museum / Science and Society Picture Library; the 10th down is from the collection of the Hunterian Museum, London.

Images top to bottom:

1. "Anatomical Crucifixion of James Legg," 1801, Royal Academy
2. "Anatomical Crucifixion of James Legg," 1801, Royal Academy, detail
3. "Anatomical Crucifixion of James Legg," 1801, Royal Academy, detail
4.  Female wax anatomical model showing internal organs 1818, The Science Museum
5. Memento Mori Figures, The Science Museum
6. Part of human stomach dissected by Edward Jenner 1790-1823 C Science Museum, Science Museum, Science and Society Picture Library.jpg
7. Wax moulage by Joseph Towne showing hand with smallpox, 19th century, The Gordon Museum
8. Wax model of human torso by Joseph Towne, 19th century, The Gordon Museum
9. Handbill advertising display of anatomical Venus, 1810-1840 
10. Thomas Rowlandson, 'The Persevering Surgeon', late 18th century, from the collection of the Hunterian Museum, London
11. Anatomical drawing of a skeleton 1840 C Science Museum, Science and Society Picture Library

Ectoplasm, "Spirit Art," and Mars in the Edwardian Imagination: A Series of Events at Observatory Curated by Photographer Shannon Taggart

I am very excited to announce a series of spiritualist themed events produced by my good friend, newest Observatory member, and extremely talented photographer Shannon Taggart. All the events are based around her current Observatory exhibition, The Spirit Art of Stanley Matrunick.

Full details follow; hope to see there!

The Spirit Art of Stanley Matrunick Viewing Event 

Sunday, October 14 - 2pm - 5pm 

Join us for a viewing event during Gowanus Open Studios Weekend. Music and Drinks! The Morbid Anatomy Library will be open also!

About the Exhibit: Stanley Matrunick (1906 – 1995) was a medium and Spiritualist minister who channeled portraits of Ascended Masters, guardians and loved ones from the other side. With the help of spirit guides, Rev. Stanley began creating spirit art in 1954 at the White Lily Chapel in Ashley, Ohio. He was then led to travel across the United States for 40 years doing portraits and readings. His work was often featured on television, radio and in print.  The art presented here is from the private collection of Ron Nagy, historian of Lily Dale, NY, the world’s largest Spiritualist community. Also included are materials about Stanley Matrunick provided by his former student, Sakina Blue –Star of Sedona, Arizona.  

About the Curator: Shannon Taggart is a photographer based in Brooklyn and a member of Observatory. Since 2001, she has been working on a project about Modern Spiritualism. Her images have appeared in publications including Blind Spot, Tokion, TIME and The New York Times Magazine. Her photographs have been shown at Photoworks in Brighton, England, The Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Redux Pictures in New York, the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and the New Gallery in Houston.

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A History of Ectoplasm: An Illustrated Presentation by Shannon Taggart
Date: Thursday, October 25th

Time: 8pm

Admission: $10

Presented by: Shannon Taggart 

Why Ectoplasm? - Harry Houdini famously wondered this in his scathing critique of Spiritualism. Since it’s first appearances in Victorian era séance rooms, this mysterious substance has continued to seduce, disgust and intrigue believers and skeptics alike. This presentation will consider some of the complicated situations in which ectoplasm played a provocative role including the work of Baron von Schrenck-Notzing, the documentation of the Goligher Circle and the infamous case of Margery the Medium. Shannon Taggart’s images that address the current pursuit of ectoplasm within Modern Spiritualism will also be discussed. This lecture is part of a series that seeks to explore the intrinsic connection between Spiritualism and Photography. 

Shannon Taggart is a photographer based in Brooklyn and a member of Observatory. Her images have appeared in various publications including Blind Spot, Tokion, TIME and The New York Times Magazine. Her work has been recognized by the Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, the International Photography Awards, the Society for News and Design, Photo District News and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace. Her photographs have been shown at Photoworks in Brighton, England, The Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Redux Pictures in New York, the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and the New Gallery in Houston.   

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Are We Alone? Planet Mars in the Edwardian Visual and Scientific Imagination, An illustrated lecture with author Jennifer Tucker

Date: Saturday, October 27 

Time: 8pm 

Admission: $10 

Presented by: Shannon Taggart  

Astronomers, religious leaders, and members of the lay public had speculated about the possibility of life on other planets for hundreds of years before the first “proof” appeared, in May 1905, in the first successful photographs of Mars. Newspapers and magazines swiftly published reproductions of the photographs, made by the amateur planetary astronomer and wealthy businessman Percival Lowell, with accompanying descriptions of the “canals” of Mars and its imagined inhabitants. This illustrated talk shows how the intersection of science with new forms of observation and journalistic image display in the late 19^th and early 20^th century galvanized public interest in Mars, and how “Mars Mania” intersected and interacted with key trends and figures in art, journalism, spiritualism, astronomy, evolutionary science, and politics during a period that, noted the British writer H.G. Wells, was fascinated by the idea that “There are certain features in which [Martians] are likely to resemble us.” 

Jennifer Tucker is a historian of science and technology specializing in the study of visual representation, gender, science, and popular knowledge in Victorian England. She is the author of Nature Exposed:  Photography as Eyewitness in Victorian Science (2006) and editor of a special issue of History and Theory on “Photography and Historical Interpretation, “ as well as articles about the visual representation of science and technology in Victorian England. She is finishing a book about the photos and other visual representations that circulated across the wide social spectrum of Victorian society during the most famous legal case of imposture in modern Britain.

You can find out more by clicking here.

"Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy" Exhibition, Final Open Hours TOMORROW, Saturday October 6, Noon-7 PM

Tomorrow--Saturday, October 6--is your last chance to check out "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy," an exhibition featuring photographs by myself (some of which can be seen above) and waxworks by artists Eleanor Crook and Sigrid Sarda, on view at The Last Tuesday Society, 11 Mare Street, London All photographs and waxworks are for sale, and quite affordable, if I do say!

The exhibition will be view from Noon until 7:00 PM. Also on view will be the wonderful collection of taxidermy, naturalia, erotica, books and curiosities which comprises the spectacular Last Tuesday Society Giftshop.

Well worth a trip, I promise! Full details follow.

Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy
An exhibition of photographs by Joanna Ebenstein of the Morbid Anatomy Blog, The Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory with waxworks by Eleanor Crook and Sigrid Sarda.
Date: TOMORROW: Saturday, October 6
Time: Noon-7:00 PM
Location: The Last Tuesday Society, 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP

In her many projects, ranging from photography to curation to writing, New York based Joanna Ebenstein utilizes a combination of art and scholarship to tease out the ways in which the pre-rational roots of modernity are sublimated into ostensibly "purely rational" cultural activities such as science and medicine.Much of her work uses this approach to investigate historical moments or artifacts where art and science, death and beauty, spectacle and edification, faith and empiricism meet in ways that trouble contemporary categorical expectations.In the exhibition "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses" Ebenstein turns this approach to an examination of the uncanny and powerfully resonant representations of the dead, martyred, and anatomized body in Italy, monuments to humankind's quest to eternally preserve the corporeal body and defeat death in arenas sacred and profane.The artifacts she finds in both the churches, charnel houeses and anatomical museums of Italy complicate our ideas of the proper roles of--and divisions between--science and religion, death and beauty; art and science; eros and thanatos; sacred and profane; body and soul.

In this exhibition, you will be introduced to tantalizing visions of death made beautiful, uncanny monuments to the human dream of life eternal. You will meet "Blessed Ismelda Lambertini," an adolescent who fell into a fatal swoon of overwhelming joy at the moment of her first communion with Jesus Christ, now commemorated in a chillingly beautiful wax effigy in a Bolognese church; The Slashed Beauty, swooning with a grace at once spiritual and worldly as she makes a solemn offering of her immaculate viscera; Saint Vittoria, with slashed neck and golden ringlets, her waxen form reliquary to her own powerful bones; and the magnificent and troubling Anatomical Venuses, rapturously ecstatic life-sized wax women reclining voluptuously on silk and velvet cushions, asleep in their crystal coffins, awaiting animation by inquisitive hands eager to dissect them into their dozens of demountable, exactingly anatomically correct, wax parts.

Joanna Ebenstein: New York based visual artist and independent scholar Joanna Ebenstein runs the popular Morbid Anatomy Blog and the related Morbid Anatomy Library, where her privately held collection of books, art, artifacts, and curiosities are made available by appointment.

For the past 5 years, she has traveled the world, seeking out the most curious, obscure and macabre collections, public and private, front stage and back, and sharing her findings via her the Morbid Anatomy Blog as well as a variety of exhibitions including  Anatomical Theatre, a photographic survey of artifacts of great medical museums of the Western World; The Secret Museum, a photographic exhibition exploring the poetics of collections private and public, front stage and back.

Other exhibitions using history as their muse include Savior of Mothers: The Forgotten Ballet of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis  at the Center for Disease Control Museum and The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, an immersive investigation into the often bizarre spectacles of turn of the 20th century Coney Island at The Coney Island Museum.

She is the founding member of Observatory--a gallery and lecture space in Brooklyn, New York--and annual co-curator of The Congress for Curious Peoples, a 10-day series of lectures and performances investigating curiosity and curiosities, broadly considered and taking place at the Coney Island Museum.

Her work has been shown and published internationally, and she has lectured at museums and conferences around the world.

You can find out more about the show here, and view more images by clicking here.

"Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy" Exhibition, Open Hours This Saturday, September 22, Noon-7 PM

This Saturday, September 22, will be one of your last chances to catch an unobstructed view of the exhibition "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy" featuring my own photographs (some of which can be seen above) as well as waxworks by artists Eleanor Crook and Sigrid Sarda. All photographs and waxworks are also for sale.

The exhibition will be view at The Last Tuesday Society--11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP--from noon until 7:00 PM. Also on view will be the wonderful collection of taxidermy, naturalia, erotica, books and curiosities which comprise the spectacular Last Tuesday Society Giftshop.

Well worth a trip, I promise! Full details follow; hope very much to see you there!

Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy
An exhibition of photographs by Joanna Ebenstein of the Morbid Anatomy Blog, The Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory with waxworks by Eleanor Crook and Sigrid Sarda.
Date: This Saturday, September 22
Time: Noon-7:00 PM
Location: The Last Tuesday Society, 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP

In her many projects, ranging from photography to curation to writing, New York based Joanna Ebenstein utilizes a combination of art and scholarship to tease out the ways in which the pre-rational roots of modernity are sublimated into ostensibly "purely rational" cultural activities such as science and medicine.Much of her work uses this approach to investigate historical moments or artifacts where art and science, death and beauty, spectacle and edification, faith and empiricism meet in ways that trouble contemporary categorical expectations.In the exhibition "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses" Ebenstein turns this approach to an examination of the uncanny and powerfully resonant representations of the dead, martyred, and anatomized body in Italy, monuments to humankind's quest to eternally preserve the corporeal body and defeat death in arenas sacred and profane.The artifacts she finds in both the churches, charnel houeses and anatomical museums of Italy complicate our ideas of the proper roles of--and divisions between--science and religion, death and beauty; art and science; eros and thanatos; sacred and profane; body and soul.

In this exhibition, you will be introduced to tantalizing visions of death made beautiful, uncanny monuments to the human dream of life eternal. You will meet "Blessed Ismelda Lambertini," an adolescent who fell into a fatal swoon of overwhelming joy at the moment of her first communion with Jesus Christ, now commemorated in a chillingly beautiful wax effigy in a Bolognese church; The Slashed Beauty, swooning with a grace at once spiritual and worldly as she makes a solemn offering of her immaculate viscera; Saint Vittoria, with slashed neck and golden ringlets, her waxen form reliquary to her own powerful bones; and the magnificent and troubling Anatomical Venuses, rapturously ecstatic life-sized wax women reclining voluptuously on silk and velvet cushions, asleep in their crystal coffins, awaiting animation by inquisitive hands eager to dissect them into their dozens of demountable, exactingly anatomically correct, wax parts.

Joanna Ebenstein: New York based visual artist and independent scholar Joanna Ebenstein runs the popular Morbid Anatomy Blog and the related Morbid Anatomy Library, where her privately held collection of books, art, artifacts, and curiosities are made available by appointment.

For the past 5 years, she has traveled the world, seeking out the most curious, obscure and macabre collections, public and private, front stage and back, and sharing her findings via her the Morbid Anatomy Blog as well as a variety of exhibitions including  Anatomical Theatre, a photographic survey of artifacts of great medical museums of the Western World; The Secret Museum, a photographic exhibition exploring the poetics of collections private and public, front stage and back.

Other exhibitions using history as their muse include Savior of Mothers: The Forgotten Ballet of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis  at the Center for Disease Control Museum and The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, an immersive investigation into the often bizarre spectacles of turn of the 20th century Coney Island at The Coney Island Museum.

She is the founding member of Observatory--a gallery and lecture space in Brooklyn, New York--and annual co-curator of The Congress for Curious Peoples, a 10-day series of lectures and performances investigating curiosity and curiosities, broadly considered and taking place at the Coney Island Museum.

Her work has been shown and published internationally, and she has lectured at museums and conferences around the world.

You can find out more about the show here, and view more images by clicking here.

Morbid Anatomy Exhibition and Event Series, Viktor Wynd Fine Art/Last Tuesday Society, London, September 2012

As mentioned in a recent post, beginning in just a few days, Morbid Anatomy will be artist-in-residence at Viktor Wynd Fine Art and The Last Tuesday Society in London, England. The residency will span the entire month, and will include an exhibition (photographs from which you see above), as well as a full month's worth of "Morbid Anatomy Presents" programming that will include some seriously amazing lectures, a screening, a "Congress for Curious Peoples" symposium, and a field trip to the rarely open-to-the-public St Bartholomew's Hospital Pathology Museum where I will also give a lecture on the art and history of anatomical museums.

The exhibition, "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy," will open with a party next Thursday, September 6 and will premiere a new body of work based on my latest obsession: the through-lines connecting the beautiful, immaculately preserved corpse found in both  the churches and enlightenment-era anatomical museums of Italy. The exhibition, which will feature my own photographs and waxworks by the über-talented Eleanor Crook and Sigrid Sarda. You can download a postcard invitation which contains full information by clicking here.

I have just created pages for each event, which you can find at the Morbid Anatomy Facebook page by clicking here. The list also follows here, for your convenience:

FULL LIST OF EVENTS

Monday, 3rd September 2012, 7 PM
Granta Magazine - Medicine Issue Launch

Tuesday, 4th September 2012, 7 PM
Robert Marbury - Rogue Taxidermy in the Digital Age

Wednesday, 5th September 2012, 7 PM
Dr Sam Alberti of The Hunterian Museum on the History of Medical Museums

Thursday, 6 September 2012, 6-8 PM
Opening Reception for "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy," Sponsored by Hendricks Gin

Saturday, 8th September 2012, 11 AM - 5:30 PM
'Congress for Curious People' Seminar - London Edition

Monday, 10th September 2012, 7 PM
Ronni Thomas and The Real Tuesday Weld - 'Midnight Archive' screening

Tuesday, 11th September 2012, 7 PM
Martin Clayton on Leonardo Da Vinci and Dissection

Wednesday, 12th September 2012, 7 PM
Curious Cafés of the Belle Epoque with Vadim Kosmos

Monday, 17th September 2012, 7 PM
Gemma Angel on the History of Human Tattoos

Wednesday, 19th September 2012, 7 PM
Field Trip to St Bart's Pathology Museum with Lecture by Joanna Ebenstein

Thursday, 20th September 2012, 7 PM
Paul Craddock - History of Blood Transfusions

Tuesday, 25th September 2012, 7 PM
Dr. James Kennaway - Bad Vibrations

Wednesday, 26th September 2012, 7 PM
Dr. Pat Morris - Extreme Taxidermy: Elephants and Humans

Thursday, 27th September 2012, 7 PM
Royal Raymond Rife and his Oscillating Beam Ray with Mark Pilkington

Sunday, 30th September 2012, 7 PM
Eleanor Crook on Plastic Surgery of the World Wars

You can find out more about the exhibition here and more about the events here. All of the above images are drawn from the exhibition "Ecstatic Raptures and Immaculate Corpses: Visions of Death Made Beautiful in Italy," opening at Viktor Wynde's Fine Art on September 6th with a reception from 6-8, and will be on view through the end of the month. And a special shout out to Jessica Pepper, who so expertly and beautifully retouched these images.

Greetings from the David J. Sencer Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Museum in Atlanta, Georgia

My apologies for the recent silence; I have been hard at work creating--and now installing!--an  exhibition entitled "Savior of Mothers: The Forgotten Ballet of Ignaz Semmelweis." The show officially opens at the David J. Sencer CDC Museum in association with the Smithsonian Institution at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia next Monday, June 11th.

More on the exhibition, from the CDC Museum website:

Savior of Mothers: The Forgotten Ballet of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis is an installation of artifacts and ephemera related to an imaginary 19th century ballet created by artist Joanna Ebenstein. The ballet is based on the true story of the brilliant, yet reviled Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865). Scenes range from his earliest attempts to curb the "childbed fever" epidemic in his Viennese obstetrical clinic to his premature death of the very disease he had spent his life trying to defeat. Ebenstein was drawn to Semmelweis' distinctive story not only for its topical and scientific theme--albeit tinged by melodrama and mythic elements--but also for its mixture of beauty and the grotesque. His tale, best suited to the form of a popular tragedy, makes ballet the ideal medium for Semmelweis' tale. Ebenstein's installation includes costume designs for the "Plague Demons of Cadaverous Particles"--expressionistic representations of the virulent bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes itself--and the "12 mourning mothers from beyond the grave," as well as model theaters, posters, and more.

More on this to come very soon; In the meantime, above are some photos of the installation as it inches along. My favorite piece is the very truly enchanting model theatre (bottom 2 images), designed by the astounding Chris Muller and executed by the exceptionally talented Jason Ardizzone-West; it depicts a set for of a mid-19th century anatomical theatre in which some of the major action of the ballet takes place.

The exhibition opens on next Monday, June 11th, at the  David J. Sencer Museum at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. More can be found here.

"Rogue Taxidermy Biennial Taxidermy Show;" La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, Through May 27th

I am very excited to announce a wonderful looking new exhibition curated by friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy and Minnesota Rogue Taxidermist Robert Marbury. With the ever increasing popularity of taxidermy in the fine arts world, this "Rogue Taxidermy Biennial Taxidermy Show"comes not a second too soon, and features the work of such creative-taxidermic luminaries as Sarina Brewer (top, "Sweet Dreams"), Adam Wallacavage, Jeanie M. (center, "Arabian Squirrel on a Flying Carpet"), Jessica Joslin, and our own Daisy Tainton (bottom, "A Patient's Despair"), teacher of Saturday's Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox workshop (more on that here).

If I was in Los Angeles, I would be on my way to see this right now! For those of you in the area, full info follows:

ROGUE TAXIDERMY
Our Biennial Taxidermy Show
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
May 4th – 27th, 2012

The Rogue Taxidermy 2012 Biennial, curated by Robert Marbury, features 25 of the most interesting artists working in taxidermy today. Rogue Taxidermy, a mixed-media art utilizing taxidermy materials, is more closely related to surrealism than to mainstream taxidermy. The work in this show spans genres and materials to expresses the individual artist's approach to and love of natural history and preservation.

There are some great photos from the opening here.
All members of the MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION OF ROGUE TAXIDERMISTS implicitly pledge by merit of their membership to abide by the following ethical regulations:

1. All members pledge to continually strive to make efficient use of the animals and parts of animals employed in the creation of their art. Wastefulness is strongly discouraged.

2. Animals shall be procured in a manner that does not require their termination for the explicit purpose of mounting or displaying. Collecting road-kill, accepting, purchasing animals from supply companies and from grocery stores are all considered to be acceptable, ethical means of procuring animals. Recycling and re-use are primary tenets of the association.

3. Please note that it is your responsibility to check with your local Department of Natural Resources and fish & wildlife authorities regarding your taxidermy activities. Be aware that endangered, threatened and protected species (including, but not exclusive to, raptors and songbirds) can only be mounted for museums and educational institutions providing all necessary permits. Roadkill is not excluded from these regulations. Additionally, in accordance with state and federal law, anything utilizing waterfowl, crows, or other restricted birds can only be mounted for the client who provides the animal with all attending permits.

4. If approached to create a custom mount which is generally considered to be a specialty of another M.A.R.T. member, it is strongly suggested that you recommend the services of that member to the potential customer before accepting the commission.

5. Members are greatly encouraged to participate in the care and conservation of living animals.

6. M.A.R.T. seeks to create an open dialogue about the place of animals in our culture. Protests, slander, and admonitions shall be greeted with an attempt to foster conversation. Reacting to criticism in a cruel or indignant way is considered antithetical to the M.A.R.T. mission statement.

You can find out more about this exhibiiton by clicking here. If you are interested in signing up for Daisy Tainton's class, click here for more.

"Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection," Through July 8, Chicago Cultural Center

I am pleased to announce an exhibition showcasing the collection of friend-of-Morbid Anatomy Richard Harris--one of the foremost collectors of all things death related--on view through July 8 at the Chicago Cultural Center. This looks to me amazing; full info follows, from the press release:

Chicago Cultural Center Brings Death To Life In Unprecedented New Exhibition
Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection
January 28 – July 8, 2012

Exhibit Explores the Iconography of Death, Showcases Nearly 1,000 Works From Richard Harris’ Collection – by Rembrandt, Mapplethorpe, Dürer, Goya, Jasper Johns and Many Other Notable Artists

CHICAGO (November 2, 2011) – A deadly obsession takes hold of the Chicago Cultural Center this winter when one of its largest exhibitions to date, Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection, opens Saturday, January 28, 2012.

Presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in partnership with the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture, Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection showcases the wild and wonderfully eclectic selection of nearly 1,000 works of fine art, artifacts, massive installations and decorative objects, including creations by many of the greatest artists of our time, that explore the iconography of death across a variety of artistic, cultural and spiritual practices from 2000 B.C.E. to the present day.

Richard Harris, a resident of Riverwoods, Ill. who has been an art collector for 40 years, has gathered his provocative collection from all corners of the world to share with Chicago. Morbid Curiosity will fill two exhibition spaces, the 4th floor Exhibit Hall and Sidney R. Yates Gallery, at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., and will run through Sunday, July 8, 2012.

“We are all born to die. The questions that fascinate me are how we will die, where will we die and when will we die,” said Richard Harris. “At the age of 74, I believe it is incumbent upon me to make my collection a paean to death in all its many visages.”

The two major components of this exhibition are the “War Room,” highlighting the atrocities of war in notable works from the 17th century to present day in the 4th floor Exhibit Hall; and the “Kunstkammer of Death,” a modern-day “cabinet of curiosities” housed in the Sidney R. Yates Gallery, featuring a wide-ranging survey of mortality across cultures and spiritual traditions. The centerpiece of the “War Room” is Mr. Harris’ rare collection of five great war series, featuring prints by Jacques Callot, Francisco Goya, Otto Dix, the Chapman Brothers and Sandow Birk, which he has acquired over the past 30 years. This exhibition marks the first time that all five series will be exhibited together in their entirety.

“The scope, quality and diversity of Mr. Harris’ collection is unprecedented,” said Michelle T. Boone, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. “Morbid Curiosity will fill two gallery spaces on the 4th floor to cover a total of 14,000 sq. ft. during its six-month run, making it one of our largest and longest-running exhibitions to date.” “We look forward to hosting an exciting array of music, theater and art programming in conjunction with the exhibition, further engaging the public in a conversation about difficult themes that continue to fascinate humankind,” added Commissioner Boone.

“War Room”
Mr. Harris presents his rare collection of five great war series, arguably the most remarkable interpretations of war in art, evoking the ongoing cycle of human cruelty and destruction over centuries. Chronologically, the first of the series features Jacques Callot’s 17th century Miseries of War prints, followed by Francisco Goya’s extraordinary 18th century Disasters of War. The two masterpieces of the 20th century include Otto Dix’s Der Kreig and Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Disasters of War, both of which are heavily influenced by Goya. Completing the series is the 21st century The Depravities of War by Sandow Birk featuring massive woodblock prints depicting the Iraq war.

“Kunstkammer of Death”
The Italianate Sidney R. Yates Gallery will have its own distinct flavor within the exhibition as it is transformed into the style of a 17th century “Kunstkammer of Death.” (“Kunstkammer” is the precursor of the Public Museum as we know of them today. One of the greatest examples of a Kunstkammer was established by Peter the Great in Russia in 1727. Peter’s museum was a “cabinet of curiosities” dedicated to preserving natural and human curiosities and artistic rarities from across the globe as a means of acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of the world.) Featured in the “Kunstkammer of Death” will be works that explore death in all aspects from the spiritual to the scientific. Incredible works by such artists as Laurie Lipton, Chicago artist Marcos Raya and the Argentinean collective, Mondongo, bring to life the Mexican Holiday, Day of the Dead. Additionally, the gallery will be filled with a vast assortment of artistic styles and genres including the Dance of Death, a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death and Vanitas, a type of art that employs symbolic elements, such as hourglasses, rotting fruit and skulls, to signify the brevity of life.

Additional highlights of Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection include:

• Works by notable artists including Rembrandt, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Bellmer, Odilon Redon, Pavel Tchelitchew, James Ensor, Jasper Johns and Robert Mapplethorpe.
• Breathtaking 13 ft. high chandelier made of 3,000 handcrafted plaster bones by contemporary British artist Jodie Carey. The piece directly engages the viewer with the irony or contradictions implicit in the decay/beauty aesthetic.
• Visually stunning large-scale installation, “Tribute,” from Guerra de la Paz entirely built from colorful used clothing that commemorates the Holocaust.
• Specimens, medical charts and ephemera.
• Work by contemporary artists such as Andres Serrano, Vik Muniz and Hugo Crosthwaite, including his commissioned 10 x 25 ft. site-specific mural, “Death March,”among others.
  
• Ethnographic artifacts and art from other cultures, particularly Tibet, Mexico, Africa and New Guinea.
  

“Ironically, the object that best personifies my own curiosity towards the subject of death can be seen in a 1927 photograph that is probably the least expensive object in the collection, costing me $5,” said Mr. Harris. “It is a photograph of a woman named Phebe Clijde surrounded by friends in the backyard of Phebe’s home in the suburbs of San Diego. In this neighborly scene, Phebe is holding a human skull. ‘What could she be thinking? Who’s skull is this? How did the person die?’ are some of the questions that ignite Phebe’s and my curiosity.”

Richard Harris has been collecting for more than 40 years. Previous shows that have exhibited his works are The Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, Pa., Strictly Death (Jan. 23 – Mar. 13, 2010); The Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, Dancing Towards Death (Sept, 18, 2010 – Jan. 9, 2011); and Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA), Chicago, The Richard Harris Collection: Balint Zsako Collages (Feb. 3 – May 1, 2011).

You can find out more by clicking here. Thanks to Richard Harris and Pam Grossman for alerting me to this exhibition!

Images: The Chicago Tribune

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

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

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

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:

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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