This Friday the Thirteenth: A Highly Illustrated Virtual Tour of Medical Museums of the Western World by Morbid Anatomy at Observatory!

Just a friendly reminder: if you are looking for a way to celebrate this upcoming Friday the 13th--and who isn't, really?--why not come down to Observatory for a special event: a highly illustrated and subjective tour of medical museums of the Western World by Morbid Anatomy's Joanna Ebenstein, followed by music and delicious artisanal cocktails compliments of Friese Undine?

Why not, indeed!

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

Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig
A heavily illustrated lecture by Morbid Anatomy founder Joanna Ebenstein, followed by afterparty featuring thematic music and specialty cocktails by Friese Undine
Date: Friday, July 13
Time: 8:00
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy 

Since 2005, artist, independent scholar and Morbid Anatomist Joanna Ebenstein has travelled the world seeking out--and photographing whenever possible--the most fascinating, curious, and overlooked medical collections and wunderkammern, backstage and front, private and public. In the process, she has amassed not only an astounding collection of images but also a great deal of knowledge about the history and cultural context of these fascinating and uncanny artifacts.  

This Friday the Thirteenth, please join us for a heavily illustrated lecture based on this research, followed by a thematic afterparty. In her lecture "Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig," Ebenstein will lead you on a highly-illustrated tour of medical museums and introduce you to many of their most curious and enigmatic denizens, including the Anatomical Venus, the Slashed Beauty, the allegorical fetal skeleton tableau (as seen above), the flayed horseman of the apocalypse, and three fetuses dancing a jig. Ebenstein will contextualize these artifacts via a discussion of the history of medical museums and modeling, a survey of great artists of the genre, and an examination of other death-related arts and amusements which made up the cultural landscape at the time that these objects were originally created, collected, and exhibited. Following, please stick around for an afterparty featuring thematic tunes and inventive artisanal cocktails complements of the omni-talented Friese Undine.  

Joanna Ebenstein is a multi-disciplinary artist with an academic background in intellectual history. She runs the Morbid Anatomy blog and related open-to-the-public Brooklyn-based Morbid Anatomy Library. She is also the founding member of Observatory, a Brooklyn based arts and events space devoted to the revival of the 18th century notions of the dilettante and rational amusements. Her recent work—which includes photography, curation, installation, blogging, museum consulting, lecturing and writing—centers on anatomical museums and their artifacts, collectors and collecting, curiosities and marvels, 18th and 19th Century natural history and, as the subtitle of her blog states, “surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture.” She has lectured at a variety of popular and academic venues, and her work has been shown and published internationally; she is the current Coney Island Musuem artist in resident, and recent solo exhibitions include The Secret Museum and Anatomical Theatre. You can find out more at her at her website astropop.com and her blog Morbid Anatomy; you can view much of her photography work by clicking here. She can be reached at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com.

You can find out more about this event here.

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

1. "Fetal Skeleton Tableau, 17th Century, University Backroom, Paris; © Joanna Ebenstein, 2010
2. Skeleton and hand models for "la médecine opératoire" Musée Orfila, Paris. Courtesy Université Paris Descartes; © Joanna Ebenstein, 2010
3. Plaster Models in Pathological Cabinet, The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow; © Joanna Ebenstein, 2010
4. Wax Anatomical Models in Rosewood and Venetian Glass Boxes, The Josephinum, Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence circa 1780s, Vienna, Austria; © Joanna Ebenstein, 2007
5. "Slashed Beauties" in Rosewood and Venetian Glass Boxes, The Josephinum, Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence circa 1780s, Vienna, Austria; © Joanna Ebenstein, 2007

"Morbid Anatomy: Exploring the Art of Death" OR New Morbid Anatomy Episode of "The Midnight Archive"

Episode 2, Season 2 of The Midnight Archive--that wonderful web-based documentary series centered around Brooklyn's Observatory--has just gone live! Entitled "Morbid Anatomy: Exploring the Art of Death," it features my work with Morbid Anatomy, The Morbid Anatomy Library and the Morbid Anatomy Presents series at Observatory, as well as my work photographing curious collections--public and private, front stage and back--around the world.

To watch the episode, simply press play in the viewer above. More on the episode, in the words of director/creator Ronni Thomas:

It is an honor to present in this episode my friend and a huge inspiration to me - Joanna Ebenstein whose Morbid Anatomy blog (morbidanatomy.blogspot.com) is sort of the online Bible of the macabre and the sublime (making Mademoiselle Ebenstein - as i call her - the Patron Saint of Odd).  Here she discusses the thinking behind her research, her views on death and beauty and the institution she has created.  If you are not already a huge fan - make sure to visit morbidanatomy.blogspot.com AND check out more amazing photography from our girl at astropop.com/secretmuseum and astropop.com/anatomical

For more on the series, to see any of the 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. If you are interested in medical museums and their curious denezins, be sure to stop by Friday night to grab a drink and see my lecture "Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig" at Observatory this Friday; more on that can be found here.

Museums of London Tour, October 5-14, with Jim Edmonson of the Dittrick Museum

Friend of Morbid Anatomy Jim Edmonson of Cleveland's Dittrick Medical Museum has just informed us that he will be leading a guided tour of London Museums this October 5th to 14th; stops along the way include such wonderful museums as The Wellcome Collection (who is celebrating its 5th birthday today! Happy birthday!), The Hunterian, and the Old Operating Theatre.

Blurb follows; full details can be found here:

Museums of London Tour
Art, History and Medicine, October 5-14, 2012 

We invite you to join Catherine Scallen, Chair of the Art History department and Jim Edmonson, Curator of the Dittrick Museum on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, for this custom designed tour of the key museums of London, England. Jim's contact with fellow curators and museum directors opens doors and provides the group with unique insights into their collections and aspects not normally open to the general public. Catherine's experience teaching and researching the masters of European Art from 1400 to 1900 will provide historical depth that makes the art museums' collections come alive.  

Please note that our deadline for reserving a place on the London tour is June 30,
so contact us today to secure your reservation.

Please note: the final sign up day has been extended to June 30 from June 15th. If interested, you can find out more here.

Photo: The Hunterian Museum, London, from the museum's website.

Morbid Anatomy Coming to Chicago: "A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum," The Chicago Cultural Center, Thursday, May 3, 6 PM

For those of you in and about Chicago, I would love to see you this Thursday, May 3, at The Chicago Cultural Center where I will be giving a lecture entitled "A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum" as part of a series of events supplementing the amazing looking  Morbid Curiosity exhibition. The images above--drawn from my 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.

A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum
An Illustrated Lecture by Joanna Ebenstein
_______


The Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington Street Chicago, IL 60602
Thursday, May 3, 2012
6 o’clock PM

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

You can find out more by clicking here.

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

1. "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)
2. "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)
3. "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
4. The Mütter Museum : Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pathological model; 19th Century?
5. Wax Model of Eye Surgery, Musée Orfila, Paris. Courtesy Université Paris Descartes
6. Wax Anatomical Models in Rosewood and Venetian Glass Boxes, The Josephinum, Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence circa 1780s, Vienna, Austria
7. 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
8. Plaster Models in Pathological Cabinet, The Museum of the Faculty of Medicine at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow
9. Skeleton and hand models for "la médecine opératoire" Musée Orfila, Paris. Courtesy Université Paris Descartes

Hidden Stories: What do Medical Objects Tell and How Can We Make them Speak? 16th Biennial EAMHMS Conference Berlin, September 13-15 2012

I am very excited to announce the final lineup for this year's EAMHMS--aka European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences-- conference taking place September 13-15 in Berlin, Germany at the fantastic Museum of Medical History at the Charité, pictured above!

Full details below. Hope to see you there.

Hidden Stories: What do medical objects tell and how can we make them speak? 16th Biennial EAMHMS Conference
Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité, Charitéplatz 1, D-10117 Berlin,
13 – 15 September 2012
The XVI EAMHMS Conference
European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences
Berlin, September 13 - 15, 2012

PROGRAMME

Thursday, 13 September 2012: Beginning in the ‘Hörsaalruine’ of the Berlin Museum of Medical History

10.00 - 13.30 Arrival of Participants, Registration and Refreshments
11.00 + 12.30 Guided tours through the museum (a look behind the scenes)
14.00 - 14.30 Opening speeches

14.30 - 15.30 Session 1: Introduction, getting started …

• Robert Jütte, Stuttgart (Germany): Exhibiting Intentions. Some Reflections on the Visual Display of a Culturally Purposeful Object
• Thomas Söderqvist, Copenhagen (Denmark): Is the ‘things talk’ metaphor really useful? Or does it conceal a deeper understanding of our material interaction with things?

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee and Tea

16.00 - 16.15 Walk to the Institute of Anatomy (Oskar Hertwig-Lecture Hall)

16.15 - 18.15 Session 2: Object biographies (I)

• Sophie Seemann, Berlin (Germany) A friend’s skull – gazing in a patient’s room in 1757
• Christa Habrich, Ingolstadt (Germany): A Mystery of a Platinum-made Cystoscope
• Lisa Mouwitz, Gothenburg (Sweden): Looking through the nail
• Jim Edmonson, Cleveland (USA): The art of extrapolation: following the trail from patent number to a revolution in surgical instrument design and manufacture

18.15- 19.15 Guided tours through the Anatomical Teaching Collection or the nearby
Zootomical Theatre

19.30 - 23.00 Conference Dinner in the ‘Hörsaalruine’

9.00 - 10.30 Session 3: Object biographies (II ) – waxes

• Marion Maria Ruisinger, Ingolstadt (Germany) Christus anatomicus
• Sara Doll, Heidelberg (Germany) Models of Human Embryogenesis. The search for the meaning of wax reconstructions
• Michael Geiges, Zürich (Switzerland) Wax Moulage Nr. 189. From teaching aid to the patients‘ story by an unusual research document

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee and Tea

11.00 - 12.30 Session 4: Teaching

• Shelley McKellar, London (Canada) Challenging Students with Toothkeys and Scarificators: Experiences with Object-Based Teaching in History
• Alfons Zarzoso, Barcelona (Spain) Teaching medical history through the material culture of medicine
• Stefan Schulz, Bochum; Karin Bastian, Leipzig (Germany) Object-based, Research-oriented Teaching in Seminars and Exhibition Projects

12.30 - 14.00 Lunch, Coffee and Tea

14.00 Walk to the nearby ‘Museum für Naturkunde’

14.30 - 15.30 Guided tours in smaller groups through the ‘Museum für Naturkunde’

15.30 - 17.40 Session 5: Research

• Thomas Schnalke, Berlin (Germany) Divas on the Catwalk. Some thoughts on research with objects in medical history
• Claire Jones, Worcester (Great Britain) Identifying Medical Portraiture: The case of Andrew Know Blackall
• Julia Bellmann, Heiner Fangerau, Ulm (Germany) Evolution of Therapeutic Technology: Industrial archives and collections as sources for historians of medicine
• Benôit Majerus, Luxembourg (Luxembourg) The Material Culture of Asylums Supported by Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Berliner Charité e.V.
• Nurin Veis, Melbourne (Australia) Stories from Asylums – Discovering the Hidden Worlds of the Psychiatric Services Collection

17.40 - 18.30 Transfer to the boat pier ‘Märkisches Ufer’

19.00 - 22.15 Spree Cruise (Berlin from the waterside) and dinner on board

Saturday, 15 September 2012: Final meeting in the ‘Hörsaalruine’

9.00 - 11.00 Session 6: Presenting

• Hsiang Ching Chuang, Eindhoven (Netherlands) Contextualizing Museum Experiences Through Metaphors
• Mienekete Hennepe, Leiden (Netherlands) Scary Things: Horrifying objects between disgust and desire
• Bart Grob, Leiden (Netherlands) Medicine at the Movies
• Tim Huisman, Leiden (Netherlands) Anatomical Illustration and Beyond: Looking at Bidloo and De Lairesse’s Anatomia humani corporis

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee and Tea

11.30 - 12.30 Final session

You can find a registration form here; Image sourced here. Hope to see you there!

19th Century Medical Mummies in the News

A group of forensic anthropologists have completed a meticulous analysis of a set of real human anatomy displays from 19C Italy. Using CT scans and other chemical analysis, the group determined that, some 200 years ago, anatomist Giovan Battista Rini "petrified" the corpses with a mercury and other heavy metals. He injected some tinctures and used others as baths. The eyes are fake. Basically, Rini was modern medicine's first "Body Worlds" guy.--The Terrifying Body Worlds Mummy Heads of 19C Italy, Gakwer

Ok. So although this Gawker story has a MAJOR inaccuracy--Giovan Battista Rini was hardly "medicine's first 'Body Worlds' guy;" that honor would surely go to Honoré Fragonard and his incredible Anatomical Ecorchés from the 18th century--its still nice to see anatomical preparations discussed and pictured in the mainstream media. Read more about the recent CT scan analysis on preparations from the 19th century collection of anatomist Giovan Battista Rini pictured above here and here. Images by Dario Piombino-Mascali, EURAC, and Clinical Anatomy/Wiley via National Geographic article; click here to see more.

Thanks to my buddy Ken for sending this my way.

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

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

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

...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:

1. Models of human skulls in ivory, silver and wood
2. A pair of phrenological busts, 1821
3. 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
   
4. Ivory anatomical figures, 17th-18th century
5. 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
6. Wax model of decomposing body in coffin, Italian, late 1700s
7. Plaster death mask of Victorian murderer James Bloomfield Rush
8. Stuffed coiled snake, 1897
9. Chinese porcelain fruit containing couple in sexual foreplay
   

Medical tricks and Victorian treats at The Florence Nightingale Museum, London, October 28th

This just in from my friend Natasha McEnroe, recently of the incredible Grant Museum and now at London's Florence Nightingale Museum:

Medical tricks and Victorian treats.....
10am – 5pm, Monday October 24th – Friday October 28th.
The Florence Nightingale Museum, London
Free with the price of admisison

Come and follow, if you dare, the Halloween Trail at the Florence Nightingale Museum. Medical tricks and Victorian treats fill the museum over Halloween half term. Take part in quizzes and quests, grisly games and ghoulish activities, and earn a bulging goody bag. Enter the Halloween competition for a chance to win a horribly good prize.

Feast your eyes on the vermin-infested Halloween banquet! Put your life in the hands of a crazed Victorian quack doctor! And come face to face with the monster lurking underneath the haunted bed....

More on this event can be found here.

European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) Conference: Call for Papers!

I am excited to announce a call for papers for the 16th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS). The call is issued by Thomas Schnalke, director of the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum, the museum which will be hosting the 2012 conference, and reads as follows:

Dear friends and colleagues!

After a highly inspiring conference of the European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) in Copenhagen in 2010, it is my pleasure to invite the members of the association, as well as interested scholars and curators from the community of medical history collections and museums to join in and actively participate in the next meeting of the organisation. The conference will be held at the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité from 13 to 15 September 2012. As we all profited from the vibrant culture of debate and discussion, Thomas Söderqvist and his team had generated in Copenhagen, we would like to keep the idea of pre-circulating extended abstracts plus a short oral presentation of the core ideas in the conference (10 mins!). Beamer and laptop will be provided for Power-Point-Presentations. The language for abstracts, talks, and discussions will be English.

While the Copenhagen conference opened and fuelled the still ongoing debate on how to collect and present medical and medical history issues in times when objects tend to fade into the invisible and intangible cosmos of the virtual and nano biology, we want to address the attention back to the physical things we have and deal with: the objects in our collections, depots, and museums. These items are a mystery. They present strangely curved and shiny surfaces. They perform in all different shapes, materials and colours. And they are quiet. They usually don’t talk. But, and this is our chance and challenge, ideas and concepts had been inscribed into their physical make. Medical theories and practices as intricately mixed epistemic processes had found their specific materialisations in the defined structures of such things. Over the times of their preservation they might have lost their primary functions, won secondary ones, but more crucial: They have gained meaning for which we can seek, if we decide to take these objects as serious sources for our work as historians of medicine, science, technology, culture, art, humanities etc.

What we have to do is asking for the “text” in the object, i.e. sometimes a real text in, with or around the thing (may this be only a code, a chiffre or a number), or a “subtext” somehow embedded in the shaped materials implicitly or connected with the object but detached from it and stored elsewhere, as in added files, fascicles or publications. With the clues and information we get from there we can move on to reconstruct the object’s context. Only within this context, the object begins to speak. We can tell its story and biography.

The conference will therefore focus on objects, asking always for the hidden “texts” and “subtexts” on two different paths—a more practical and a conceptual one:
1. Hidden stories. What do medical objects tell?

We ask for papers that really focus on one medical object from your collections, depots or show rooms. Please slip into the role of a Sherlock Holmes to solve the case of this very object, i.e. by observing and describing the thing accurately, looking for clues (“texts”) and additional information (“subtexts”) and presenting your spiral analysis and interpretation around the item, thus telling us the full object story. You may chose any medical object of your personal interest—an ancient mask, medieval blood letting device, a scientific kymograph or a modern gene sequencer—from any time, culture and geographical zone. The only aim we ask you to keep in mind is to show us how far you get with your object-centred research, how far you can draw your interpretation surely consulting secondary archival material and relevant literature. Please also reflect on the limits of this approach.

2. How can we make our objects speak?
Here we ask for papers that reflect on a more conceptual base on how we can deal with objects in three different arenas:

- Research: Medical objects and collections form a unique source in performing research on various topics in the history of medicine and the sciences. What prerequisites and infrastructures do we need to study our objects effectively? What are innovative modes and approaches in a material culture of performing research on, with and around our objects? What forms of networking and funding do we need to support an object-centred research? What are adequate and new formats of publication for our object studies?

- Teaching: Medical Objects and collections offer a unique chance for visual and haptic forms of teaching in many fields. Can you share your thoughts and experiences on this field with us? What are the features, values, and potentials of an object-based teaching? What are possible limits here (delicacy of objects, climate, access, etc.)? What formats of object-based teaching have been tried out (best practice) or ought to be developed further towards a better training in the medical (historical) fields? What links of object-based teaching to research and public outreach have been built up and tried out with what results?

- Presenting: Medical Objects and collections form the core items for our exhibits. What do we want to achieve with our object presentations? What is the very nature, what are the features of exhibitions in our fields? Whom do we want to reach? What are good and innovative formats to make our objects speak and perform for a wider public in our showrooms? What connections with the arenas of research and teaching are possible and sensible? What is the status of an object-based thematic exhibition in our own eyes, in the minds of our external audiences, including the general public and the scientific community?

We ask you to choose a topic from the above-mentioned issues and send your abstract (maximum 700 characters) with a title, your name, the name of your institution (if you are attached to any) and your contact data (preferably e-mail address) until 31 October 2011 to thomas.schnalke [at] charite.de. A programme committee will select from the abstracts to compose a hopefully inspiring programme. If your contribution was chosen, you will be asked to work out and hand in an extended abstract (2 to 5 pages) until 15 May 2012. All papers will be put together in one pdf-file and sent out to all participants in time before the conference starts in Berlin on 13 September 2011. We will ask the participants to have read the papers, so that a short presentation (10 mins!) will be enough to focus on the core arguments.

Please help us to put together an inspiring conference. See you all in Berlin 2012.

Best wishes
Thomas Schnalke

Found on the always wonderful Biomedicine on Display. Image sourced here. Hope to see you there!

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory This Week: The Hyrtl Skull Collection and Victorian Bell Jar Show and Tell!

This Week at Observatory: An artist's investigation into the Mütter Museum's famous Hyrtl Skull Collection! Meditations on the allure and history of the Victorian bell jar featuring a show and tell from an amazing private collection!

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

The Hyrtl Simulacrum
An illustrated lecture with artist Jeanne Kelly
Date: Tuesday, May 31
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

The Hyrtl Simulacrum is a multimedia, interactive augmentation to the museum experience that makes curiosity contagious and infects others with a sense of wonder. It uses museum artifacts as the foundation for creative historical fictions. These fictions are discovered through digital forensic facial reconstructions and analog interaction with story machines.

The stories begin with 8 of the 138 human skulls that combine to make up the Hyrtl collection, found in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Durning the late 1800's Dr. Joseph Hyrtl wrote what he knew about each person directly onto their skulls. The Hyrtl Simulacrum grew from these short stories written directly on bone. A famous Viennese prostitute, a tight-rope walker who died of a broken neck, a child murderer and a Tai bandit are only a few of the very real people chosen from the collection to become characters in this new narrative.

Combining her love of artistic anatomy, conceptual visual narrative, history, science and good story telling, the project has grown to include high-resolution CT scans of the original skulls, vintage photography, a variety of forensic reconstruction techniques, digital painting and image editing, large wooden interactive curiosity cabinets with miniature handmade dioramas inside and much more.

You can catch a preview of The Hyrtl Simulacrum at the Kellen Gallery at 2 West 13th St., where it will be on view through May 23rd.

Jeanne Kelly is an award winning conceptual artist, designer and all around creative. Research as design, scholarship as artistic medium, institutional insertion, collective narratives, public interventions and scripted spaces are the focus of her current work. In the creation of her own work and in collaboration with others, she has utilized everything from welding, painting and wood carving to flash animation, video projection and 3d modeling. Focusing over 20 years experience in the arts, she aims to enhance the current ideas of curation through the augmentation of the museum experience through fine art, interaction and narrative. Jeanne received her BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and her MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons The New School for Design.

Under Glass: A Victorian Obsession
An Illustrated Lecture and Show and Tell with with Glass Parlor Dome Collector John Whiteknight
Date: Thursday, June 2nd
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Part of the Out of the Cabinet: Tales of Strange Objects and the People Who Love Them Series, presented by Morbid Anatomy and Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Evan Michelson

A smoking monkey dressed as a Marquis, a Wild West scalping scene created in beeswax, a cemetery scene made from the deceased's hair, and stuffed pug dog puppies, all under glass domes!!!!!

The bell jar, or glass parlor dome, is synonymous with our memory of the Victorian Age (1837 - 1901). During the 19th century, these blown glass forms were referred to not as domes but as shades, and graced nearly every parlor, protecting a broad variety of treasures--including miniature tableaux, waxworks, natural history specimens, taxidermy of exotic birds and pets, automatons, and delicate arrangements of hairwork, featherwork, and shellwork--from dust and curious fingers.

Tonight, join parlor dome collector, scholar and author of the upcoming book Under Glass, A Victorian Obsession John Whitenight as he shares treasured objects from his more than 30 years of collecting, traces the art and history of the parlor dome in an illustrated lecture, and muses on the peculiar allure of the glass parlor dome, that extraordinarily thin bubble of glass which is at once barrier and invitation, creating an enchanted world which teases the viewer by saying, “ look at me, study me and enjoy me, but do not touch."

John Whitenight has collected antiques since he was a young boy. Along with his fever for collecting came a thirst for knowledge and a love affair with all things involving the Victorian era. Currently,his private collection consists of over 175 domes from four inches high to well over three feet high. As voracious for information as for new specimens, he has, over the years, become something of a scholar on domes and the various art forms beneath them. Feeling that this is an area that has been grossly overlooked in the study of 19th century decorative arts, Mr. Whitenight has decided it was time to put these wonderfully whimsical and eccentric Victorian concoctions into the spotlight where they belong; to this end, he is hard at work on a lavishly illustrated book on the topic entitled Under Glass, A Victorian Obsession.

You can find out more about these events on the Observatory website by clicking here; you can access these events on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

"Anatomical Venuses, Slashed Beauties, and Three Fetuses Dancing a Jig," Lecture, Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum, This Tuesday, March 1st

If anyone out there has plans to be in or around the lovely city of Cleveland, Ohio this Tuesday, March 1, why not come by the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum to take in an illustrated introduction I will be delivering on the the topic of medical museums?

The lecture--entitled "Anatomical Venuses, Slashed Beauties, and Three Fetuses Dancing a Jig?"--is open to the general pubic and, to the best of my knowledge, free to attend. The lecture is scheduled to being and 6:00 PM and will be followed by a reception at 7:00 PM.

Full details follow; would love to see you there!

Anatomical Venuses, Slashed Beauties, and Three Fetuses Dancing a Jig:
An Illustrated Journey into the Curious World of Medical Museums
Date: March 1, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM Powell Room, 2nd floor
Reception: 7:00 PM, in the Percy Skuy Gallery, of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum (Allen Memorial Medical Library, 11000 Euclid Avenue).
Please RSVP by February 25th, phone 216-368-3648, or e-mail jennifer.nieves@case.edu

In April 2007 Joanna Ebenstein created a fascinating blog, Morbid Anatomy, where she has since been "surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture." Medical museums, like the Dittrick, provide much of the content for Morbid Anatomy. But Ebenstein has cast her net still further, exploring arcane and curious collections across Europe and the UK. She'll be sharing with us her take on the often macabre and sometimes beautiful fruit of that search. From wax moulages of syphilitics in Paris to obstetric models in Bologna, and from pathology specimens in London to fetal skeletons in Leiden, Ebenstein explores the wonder of things found in medical museums. In the process, she will offer insights on the psychology of collecting, and reveal the secret life of objects and collections in these intriguing spaces.

Lecture: 6:00 PM Powell Room, 2nd floor, Reception: 7:00 PM, in the Percy Skuy Gallery, of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum (Allen Memorial Medical Library, 11000 Euclid Avenue).

Parking is available in the visitors lot under Severance Hall.

Full info available here.

Image: The Bolognese "Venerina," Anatomical Venus, Clemente Susini, 1780-1782, housed at the Museo di Palazzo Poggi in Bologna, Italy where the Venerina is housed; More on that here.

Mütter Museum Masquerade Ball, Friday, March 11

The pleasure of your company is respectfully requested at the 3rd Annual Mütter Museum Masquerade Ball taking place on Friday, March 11th and commemorating the 200th birthday of the illustrious Mütter Museum founder Thomas Dent Mutter.

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

3rd Annual Mütter Masquerade Ball
Date: Friday, March 11
19 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
The Mütter Museum/College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Don't miss the 3rd Annual Mütter Masquerade Ball!

Join us for an evening marked by fabulous costumes, great food and drink, and a birthday cake befitting the founding benefactor of the Mütter Museum,
whose 200th birthday is March 11.

Whether you sport a Victorian ensemble, or a gilded Victorian mask, we encourage you to have fun and be creative. For those who choose the timeless fashion of cocktail attire, no worries, we will provide masks at the door.

TICKETS:
General Admission: $75
9:00pm - 12:30am
Masquerade dance party with live band and a DJ, hors d'oeuvres, "The Mütter" signature cocktail, and beer & wine bar.

VIP: $125
9:00pm - 12:30am
Exclusive access to VIP Lounge featuring the Alchemy Cocktail Lab, a full bar, and a generous buffet.
Includes a complimentary dance lesson the week of the Ball.
- Once your order has been processed, the College will contact you with registration information for the complimentary dance lesson.

The Sumptuous Feast: $250
7:00pm - 12:30am
Join us for the entire evening beginning with a cocktail reception, followed by a Victorian-inspired dinner, and full access to everything! (Black Tie/Masquerade)
Includes a complimentary dance lesson the week of the Ball.
- Once your order has been processed, the College will contact you with registration information for the complimentary dance lesson.

You can purchase tickets--and find out more information--by clicking here.

"Baudelaires Dream," Paul Rumsey, 21st Century

The artist Paul Rumsey--who you may remember from this recent post--just sent along a wonderful new work (see above) based on a circa 1856 dream of the symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire.

The artwork is entitled "Baudelaires Dream;" Rumsey's descriptions of the work, and the dream, follow:

Baudelaire wrote a letter to a friend telling him about his dream. He dreams that he goes to a brothel, which is like a gallery, and finds that part of it is a medical museum. There are pictures on the wall of fetuses that the women in the brothel have given birth to. One fetus is alive and has lived there for years, it spends all day sitting on a plinth, as part of the medical exhibition. It has a rubbery appendage growing from the top of its head which it has wrapped around its body. Baudelaire has a conversation with it, then wakes up and finds that he was sleeping in the same position as the creature on its plinth.

"Baudelaires Dream" is now on view in a solo show of Rumsey's work at the Galerie Beatrice Soulie in Paris until January 15th, stumbling distance from the incredible Musée Dupuytren. You can find out more about the exhibition by clicking here. Click on the image to see much larger, finer, and more detailed image.

You can read the original dream in French by clicking here. A translation of the dream can be found here.

“Visiting an Anatomical Museum: Curiosity or Training?” Conference, Università di Modena e Reggio, Modena, Italy, Deceber 17th

This just in from Thomas Soderquist of the wonderful Biomedicine on Display:

Next Friday, 17 December, Elena Corradini at the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia organises a seminar on “Visiting an Anatomical Museum: curiosity or training?”:

Anatomical University Museums are the keepers of collections which often are very old and different for their consistence and typology. These museums have a fundamental role for the preservation and valorization of cultural historical‐scientific heritage, therefore must become a place of interdisciplinary synthesis. They represent the progress of studies in the past and for the future, and play their fundamental role for the research and for the promotion of educational activities. This role will allow them to be a service for University students and professors, and to spread scientific knowledge to different audiences. Developing the capacity of museums to work in a network is necessary for them to become centres for the production of knowledge, activities and services.

Speakers include a number of directors and curators from Italian university anatomical museums together with the directors of the Josephinum of Vienna and the Museum of Medical University of Danzig:

• Giovanni Mazzotti, University of Bologna: Visiting an Anatomical Museum: curiosity or training?
• Sonia Horn, University of Wien: The growth of collections for the permanence of an historical Anatomical Museum. The case of the Josephinum in Vienna.
• Roberto Toni, University of Parma: The Anatomical Museum as a research source in the field of
• biomedical robotics: the Tenchini project at the University of Parma
• Alessandro Ruggeri, Nicolò Nicoli Aldini, Stefano Durante, Vittorio Delfino Pesce, University of Bologna: The visit of the Anatomical Waxes Museum “Luigi Cattaneo” center of in-depth research of the Bolognese medical tradition of XIXth century and of training for modern education
• Ugo Pastorino, National Tumour Institute, Milan: The project for a virtual archive of human body images
• Carla Garbarino, University of Pavia: The anatomical collections of the Museum for the history of the University
• Marek Bukowski, University of Gdansk: An Anatomical collection and Museum of Medical University
• Berenice Cavarra, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia: Medicine and the study of the living being in XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries
• Vincenzo Esposito, Second University of Neaples: Anatomical Museums between past historical identity and present cultural crossbreeding
• Marina Cimino, University of Padua: The birth in a museum or the birth of a museum: the obstetric collection in Padua
• Elena Corradini, Elisa Orlando, Daniela Nasi, Silvia Rossi, Sara Uboldi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia: POMUI ‐ The Portal of Italian University Museums
• Giorgio Bonsanti, University of Florence; Elena Corradini, Berenice Cavarra, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia; Paolo Nadalini, INP, Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris; Luigi Vigna, Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence; Isabelle Pradier, INP, Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris: A project for the restoration of anatomical waxes

Info from Silvia Rossi or Sara Uboldi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (silvia.rossi@unimore.it; sarauboldi@yahoo.it), +39 059 205 5012

If I was in Italy, I would SO be there.... If any Morbid Anatomy readers live near Modena Italy and would like to make attend and write a report about your experience, you can email me at morbidanatomy@gmail.com.

Click here to see original post on the Biomedicine on Display website; More on the image--captioned Plakat für ein anatomisches Museum, Hamburg, 1913--at this recent post; click on image to see much larger image.

The Brothers Quay at the Mütter Museum

This just in from the New York Times: The Brothers Quay--creators of so many memorable films including "The Phantom Museum," their homage to the Wellcome Collection--are in the process of producing a "as-yet-untitled documentary on the [Mütter] museum and its adjoining 340,000-volume library!" Better yet, when it is completed, the final film will be screened as part of a symposia to be hosted in turn by the Mütter Museum, New York's Museum of Modern Art, and the incomparable Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Click here to read the entire story, entitled "Animators Amok in a Curiosity Cabinet" in today's New York Times.

Thanks, Alison, for sending this my way!

Image: Evi Numen/College of Physicians of Philadelphia, via the New York Times.

Curious Collections and Exhibitions Lecture, EAMHMS Conference, Copenhagen

I really can't watch myself on video, but if you are curious to see what I had to say at last month's Copenhagen-based EAMHMS conference on the topic how medical museums might use wunderkammer-inspired techniques of curiosity and wonder as a strategy to draw people into engaging with scientific and historical objects, you can watch the above video.

To read a nice synopsis and analysis of my brief talk and the following spirited discussion on the blog Biomedicine on Display--the work of the hosting institution, Medical Museion--click here. To read the full abstract for the talk, click here.

Thanks, Thomas, for putting this video/writeup together, and for hosting such an engaging and thought-provoking conference!

"Portrait of the Professor of Medicine Jan Bleuland," Pieter Christoffel Wonder, 1808

The Romantic painters -- especially the Dutch Romantics -- were influenced by the landscapes, portraits and still-lifes of the Dutch 17th-century masters. Pieter Christoffel Wonder (1777-1852) painted a fascinating "Portrait of the Professor of Medicine Jan Bleuland" (1818), with the self-confident, bourgeois doctor standing in front of a skeleton draped with red arteries. It could have been part of Rembrandt's "Anatomy Lesson" of 1632 -- portraying the same fascination with the interior workings of the human body.

Found in a review of the exhibition "Masters of the Romantic Period -- Dutch Painting 1800-1850" at the Kunsthal on the Wall Street Journal; you can read the article by clicking here, and find out more about the exhibition by clicking here. Image found on the Collectie Utrecht website which can be seen by clicking here.

For another peek at Jan Bleuland at work, see this recent post.

Conference Report: ‘Contemporary Medical Science and Technology as a Challenge to Museums’, 15th Bi-Annual EAMHMS Congress, Copenhagen

For medical museums, whose collections are typically composed of evocative historical objects, developments in contemporary biomedicine offer a twofold challenge to collecting and exhibiting. The first challenge is the nature of contemporary biomedical equipment: large, expensive, and without immediately obvious function (think fMRI scanner). Where a display of surgeons’ tools can be both instructive and chilling, a collection of grey-box scanners and robotic surgical suites is likely to offer both historians and visitors less. The second challenge is more fundamental: medical investigation and treatment now operates beyond the limits of the visible, at the level of genes and proteins, a scale which it is hard to relate to our own bodies and lived experience. Even the beautifully-limned image of an SEMmed protein can’t offer the visceral thrill of corporeal recognition that a pickled heart in a jar does...

For the curious among you: The Wellcome Collection's Danny Birchall has written a very nice conference report--as excerpted above--about last month's ‘Contemporary Medical Science and Technology as a Challenge to Museums’ EAMHMS Congress in Copenhagen.

Click here to read full report on Danny's blog "Museum Cultures."

Image: Installation view of Medical Museion, the host institution in Copenhagen.

"Bocal I and Bocal II," Ludovic Levasseur, Drypoint, 20th C

From top to bottom: Bocal I and Bocal II, by Ludovic Levasseur, Drypoint, 20th C.

Click on images to see larger versions. Via Elettrogenica.