"Dying on Screen," The Wellcome Collection, London, Saturday, January 19

Next Saturday at London's wonderful Wellcome Collection! If I lived in London, I would SO be here:

DYING ON SCREEN: SHORT FILM AND VIDEO BY ARTISTS
Saturday 19 January 2013
Free and Open to the Public

Death, say the sociologists, is a thing we perform. Wise to this, artists of all ilks have made works that comment on death as it happens on the stage of real life. This programme shows some of the best artist films on this topic. Curated by Wild Gift (Rosie Cooper and David Lillington). 

Fabienne Audéoud // Bonnie Camplin // Philip Hoffman // Adel Idris // Anna Molska // Artavazd Peleshian // Alexandre Périgot // Elizabeth Price // Araya Rasdjarmreansook // Michael Robinson

A day of artist film and video on death, to accompany Death: A Self Portrait at the Wellcome Collection.

The films will be screened on a loop. The programme begins at the following times: 11:00, 12:40, 14:20 and 16:00.

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE

Location: The Forum (1st floor)
Free 

You can find out more about this event here.

Image: Still from Fabienne Audéoud, She Prepared the Staging of her Death, 2000

Raccoon Head Taxidermy Class with Rogue Taxidermist Katie Innamorato, Saturday, February 9

We at Morbid Anatomy are so excited to be offering a new taxidermy class with rogue taxidermist Katie Innamorato. We have only two slots still available for this five person intensive; if interested, please shoot an email to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com.

Full details follow:

Raccoon Head Taxidermy Class with Rogue Taxidermist Katie Innamorato
Date: Saturday, February 9
Time: 11 – 5 PM
Admission: $350
***Must RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com to be addedt; 5 person limit
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

This course will introduce students to basic and fundamental taxidermy techniques and procedures. Students will be working with donated raccoon skins and will be going through the steps to do a head mount. The class is only available to 5 students, allowing for more one on one interaction and assistance. Students will be working with tanned and lightly prepped skin; there will be no skinning of the animals in class. This is a great opportunity to learn the basic steps to small and large mammal taxidermy. All materials will be supplied by the instructor, and you will leave class with your own raccoon head mount.

Rogue taxidermist Katie Innamorato has a BFA in sculpture from SUNY New Paltz, has been featured on the hit TV show "Oddities," and has had her work featured at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles, California. She is self and professionally taught, and has won multiple first place ribbons and awards at the Garden State Taxidermy Association Competition. Her work is focussed on displaying the cyclical connection between life and death and growth and decomposition. Katie is a member of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, and with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens and uses roadkill, scrap, and donated skins to create mounts.

Her website and blogs-
www.afterlifeanatomy.com
www.afterlifeanatomy.tumblr.com
www.facebook.com/afterlifeanatomy
www.etsy.com/shop/afterlifeanatomy

More here.

This Thursday Night at Observatory: "Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library" with Tom Baione of AMNH

This Thursday, January 10, I am so very excited to be hosting my former colleague at the American Museum of Natural History--library director Tom Baione--at Observatory. He will be talking about--and showing scores of amazing illustrations from!--a variety of rarely seen illustrated books residing in the museum's research library special collections as explored in his new book Natural Histories: Extraordinary 
Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library
. We will also have twenty copies of this gorgeous book--which  features forty suitable-for-framing art prints of images from the book--available for sale and signing by Mr. Baione!

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

Natural Histories: Extraordinary 
Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library: Illustrated lecture and Book Release Party with Tom Baione of New York’s American Museum of Natural History
Date: Thursday, January 10
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing

Most people are well acquainted with the front-stage wonders of New York's American Museum of Natural History--the world class habitat group dioramas, the highly stylized hall of biodiversity, the epic dinosaur skeletons; what is less well known is the equally astounding back-stage collection, which includes an world-renowned collection of exquisite, rare, and beautifully illustrated books on the natural sciences held by museum's research library. The new book Natural Histories: Extraordinary 
Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library
, edited by AMNH's Tom Baione, brings these hidden works to the fore, showcasing forty extraordinary works created between the 16th and 20th centuries, covering all seven continents, and spanning such diverse scientific fields as anthropology, astronomy, earth science,
 paleontology, and zoology. The book also features essays about each work by Museum curators, scientists, and librarians, as well as forty extraordinary, suitable-for-framing art prints of images from the book.

In tonight's highly illustrated lecture, join American Museum of Natural History's Boeschenstein Director of
 Library Services and volume editor Tom Baione for a look inside the Natural Histories... and a virtual trip behind the scenes of the Library's Rare Book Room. Attendees will also have the opportunity to purchase--and have signed!--their own copy of this gorgeous new volume.

Tom Baione, a Brooklyn native, started working in the Museum's Library in 1995 
after attending Pratt Institute's School of Library and Information
 Science. After years in the Library's Special Collections and Reference 
Services units, Tom became the Library's Director in 2010. He is an active
 member of New York's Grolier Club and lives in midtown with his high
school sweetheart. The Museum was his favorite childhood destination and he still reports a thrill upon entering the museum each day.

More here.

Morbid Anatomy Library No Appointment Open Hours, Saturdays January 12 and 19, 2-6:00 PM

For the next two Saturdays--January 12th and 19th--the Morbid Anatomy Library (seen above) will be hosting no-appointment-necessary open hours from 2:30 - to 6:00. So come on by for a perusal of the stacks and a gander at our human skeleton, tatty taxidermy and wax embryological models.

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

Photo of The Library by Joanna Ebenstein.

Eros and Thanatos at Milan's Cimetero Monumentale: "Dedizione: Don't Tell Anyone The Cause of my Death," Funerary Monument, Piero da Verona, 1914

On a recent trip to Italy with Evan Michelson--co-star of TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence--we paid an impromptu, jet-lagged visit to the wonderful Cimetero Monumentale in Milan. We were both struck by the over-the-top--and, for a cemetery, odd--sexiness of so many of its funeral monuments, particularly the one shown above. I was trying to get to the bottom of this peculiar phenomenon when I came across the following lengthy discussion of the very monument in the book Italian Memorial Sculpture 1820-1940: A Legacy of Love; As it is quite fascinating, I quote it here in its entirety here:

Milan has one of the most enigmatic of erotic monuments. Conceived by Piero da Verona ... for Maria Beruccinia in 1914, it is subtitled Dedizione and inscribed 'Non dire ad alcuno perché sona morta' ... Dedizione translates as "devotion' in English, but in Italian its earlier meaning was 'surrender' or 'submission' and, by extension, 'self sacrifice.' Our curiosity is further incited by the inscrutable inscription 'Don't tell anyone why I'm dead' or, more liberally, 'Don't tell anyone the cause of my death.' The particular kind of graceful femininity was preceded in the works of Canonica and of Domenico Trentacoste... Da Verona must also have been receptive to the sensuality of the 'Genoese Symbolist School"... while the pose may specifically reflect contemporary photography, ranging from artistic poses to soft pornography.... One's immediate reaction is to ask what on earth a sculpture like this is doing in a cemetery. Is there malice in its presence there or in the eye of the beholder?

Evan and I will be returning to Italy in mid-February to finish our project, so expect many more posts like this one. And please--if anyone knows of any must-see Italian Catholica or Anatomica that we should make sure to work into our itinerary, shoot me an email at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com!

This book, and many other books like it, resides in The Morbid Anatomy Library. The library will be open to the public next Saturday from 2-6. Image is ©Joanna Ebenstein, 2012; click to see larger, more detailed version.

Spectropia - Mirage and Ghost Stories at the Morbid Anatomy Library: Guest Post by Laetitia Barbier

I am very pleased to introduce the first of what I hope will be many guest posts by Morbid Anatomy Library intern Laetitia Barbier; she has been working with us on and off over the past few years, and has just returned to America to finish her dissertation for The Sorbonne on painter Joe Coleman.

Laeti will be writing a series of short articles for this blog based on her favorite books in the Morbid Anatomy Library; following is her first:

While helping Joanna with the post-Hurricane Sandy library unpacking, I recently stumbled upon this incredible book. Squeezed between larger volumes of the vast “Death and Art” section, this amethyst-colored booklet was so thin that its title was almost impossible to read. “Spectropia or the Surprising Spectral Illusions Showing Ghosts Everywhere and of any Colors” - A rather theatrical headline, rendered on the front cover in a multiple typography layout evoking 19^th century entertainment posters. The pamphlet cover is also illustrated with a silver, almost invisible hooked nose ghoul, pointing an accusative finger at an even more invisible target. In good condition, the book is in fact a recent facsimile of a Victorian era manual. Its author, J.H. Brown, a complete stranger to me, published it 1864 both in England and in America.

Spetropia - What does it mean? I was both amused by this obscure neologism, and by the idea that the ghosts mentioned in the title did, apparently, not suffer any constraints of space, time or even hue - 'everywhere and of any colors. ' If omnipresence could be a common aspect of spirit's nature, the concept of their polychromatic manifestations was obviously something very new to me and so far incredibly bizarre. It is only by reading the texts and shuffling through the pages of this book that the magical aspect of this treasure item revealed itself to me. 

Spetropia is no necromancy handbook, neither an history of Phantasmagoria spectacles as its macabre iconography might have suggested. It is, instead, an optical illusion manual, a toy book, a pure product of rational amusement. Spectropia in fact suggests that there is no need for a magic lantern operator to create frightening apparitions; your own eyes can serve as a substitute.

Dividing his book in several sections, Mr. Brown explains in his introduction a few simple facts about eye anatomy and their physiological specificities, and also on optic and chromatic learning, so that even young readers could understand that the experiment he proposes is not a metaphysical one, but truly rooted in science.

As he explains, the first step in this intriguing visual path is to pick out your own ghost from the sixteen large lithography plates--a pretty complex dilemma, as those Santa Muerte-like figures vie with each other in terms of amiable whimsicality, reflecting the minimal, almost naïve aesthetic preferred by Brown himself for practical purposes; at one point in the book, he apologies profusely for “the apparent disregard of taste and fine art” of his illustrations. Once your spooky companion is chosen, stare at it for about “a quarter of minute” and then move your eyes to a neutral, preferably white surface: a wall, a sheet of paper or, in my case, the ceiling of the Morbid Anatomy Library. Subsequently, the monochromatic monsters will appear, floating in the air like phosphorescent silhouette, an afterimage produced by the persistence of vision for only few seconds on the retina. As Brown explains it, the illusion will be produced in the complementary color of its original paper doppelganger. For instance, if you were to select the purple hand image (5th down), you will be haunted by a yellow ghost whereas an extended focus on a green one (3rd down) will manifest into a flamingo pink apparition… Spectres, or so it would seem, are true dandies.

But beyond this fantastic imagery, Spectropia has another quite surprising particularity. Brown's main interest was, in fact, not to amuse a young audience; instead, very alarmed by what he called a “mental epidemic” and the superstitious zeitgeist of his era, Mr. Brown was an anti-spiritualist crusader, and his aim was to bring belief in communication with the deceased to an end. By showing through playful optical experiments how ghosts could be seen everywhere and of any colors, and according to demonstrable scientific principles, Brown's object was to demonstrate how the human mind could so easily and predictably be tricked by deceiving the senses.

A true scientific mind himself, who denies legitimacy to ''the follies of spiritualism,” Brown eventually offers a quiet poetic vision of the limits of his own rationalism when, in his anatomical expose, he describe the eye as “the most wonderful example of the infinite skill of the Creator.”

You can find out more about Laetitia Barbier by clicking here; you can read some of her articles about Parisian curiosities for Atlas Obscura by clicking here. You can find out more about this book--and order a copy of your own!--by clicking here. Very big thanks, also, to my sister Donna Ebenstein for gifting this book to me a number of years back.

All images are scanned from the book; click on image to see larger, more detailed versions.

A True Tale of Krampus Youth from Bad Goisern, Austria

To extend the holiday cheer, I am very excited to share with you this tale of growing up with the Krampus tradition, just in from Austrian Morbid Anatomy reader Julia Atzmanstorfer:

Hello from Austria, 

I recently noted that you post much about Krampus - which is a very vivid tradition in the region where I live. Here in Bad Goisern/Upper Austria we have one of the biggest Krampus events in the country; hundreds of Krampusses come there to meet and run every December.

I just asked myself if you know that this old tradition has nothing to do with Christmas itself - as a important part of Advent and takes place on the 5th of December, the evening of St. Nikolaus. Krampus is the companion of St. Nikolaus (an old, rather kindhearted, but also rigorous man who visits the children), and he has the role of punishing those, who have been bad through the year, by hitting them with his birch (in former times children were also told that the Krampus would take them with him). 

These guys are really, really scary when you are a child... Their shaggy skins, their wooden masks (which are often handed down from generation to generation and nowadays also more and more orientated in modern splatter movies) and their cow bells around the ankles... the very sound of them is really threatening when they are coming nearer! 

Behind the Krampus mask there is always a young man, never a girl or a woman - and the whole custom of course also has a certain archaic sexual connotation, because the Krampusses hidden behind their masks also catch girls to hit them. When I was around 16, 17, it was always very exciting to participate in the Krampuslauf as a spectator - when you are a teenager, you hope that one of them gets you... 

Anyway. Perhaps you know all this. Just in case you did not yet, I thought you might find it interesting. 

Merry Christmas!
Julia

Thanks so much, Julia, for sending this along!

Wonderful Italian Vanitas Bust from the Late 17th Century

An Italian vanitas bust from the late 17th century, from the exhibition “Marble Sculpture From 350 B.C. to Last Week” at Sperone Westwater as seen in a recent issue of The New York Times.

More about this exhibition, from the press release:

Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to last week Curated by Gian Enzo Sperone 22 December 2011New York, NY 

Sperone Westwater is pleased to present an exhibition of white marble sculptures dating from 350 B.C. to the present day. This survey includes Greek and Roman antiquities, Neoclassical sculptures, and works by modern and contemporary European and American artists. 

Marble is one of the oldest and most fundamental materials of sculpture with wide-ranging use in the fine arts, decorative arts, and architecture. Among the works from Greek and Roman antiquity in Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to Last Week is an Ionian Greek grave relief from the second half of the fourth century B.C. that depicts three figures presenting a narrative on a farewell to the deceased. A Vestal statue from the second century A.D. represents the virgin goddess of hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. Notable Roman sculptures from the first and second century A.D. are also presented including a vase and a bust of young man. Significant sculptures from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries include Icarus, the mythological figure of a man with wings, by Tommaso Bonazza (Venice 1696 – Padua 1775), as well as Hercules by Giacomo Cassetti Marinali (Venice 1682 – Vicenza 1757), carved out of pietra di Vicenza, to name a couple.The modern and contemporary works in Marble Sculpture provide a different context for the ancient material. Pioneer of the Dada movement, Jean Arp created Mediterranean Sculpture I (Orphic Dream), 1941, a biomorphic sculpture that has rounded and angular edges, encompassing the artist’s desire to conflate nature’s different forms. Richard Long’s Heaven (Portrait of Carl Andre), 2011, consists of six rows of large marble blocks. Infinite, 2011, by Fabio Viale, depicts two interlocked tires carved out of marble. Not Vital’s 1/2 Man 1/2 Animal, 1996, is an eleven-foot tall anthropomorphic sculpture that resembles a mythical creature. An installation of five slabs, Ai Weiwei’s Marble Doors, 2007, depicts a barricade of white and grey doors. Bertozzi & Casoni’s Gorilbattista, 2011, is a vanitas sculpture of a gorilla head on a plate. Tom Sachs’s Brute, 2009/2010, transforms an ordinary lightweight object to the extraordinary through the medium of marble. In Purity, 2008-2011, Barry X Ball reinvigorates the age-old tradition of figurative marble sculpture through the use of unconventional stones and methods.

Click on image to see larger, finer version.

"Hairy Secrets: Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Mourning Jewelry:" Lectures and Hair Art Workshop, January 18-31, Observatory

We at Morbid Anatomy are delighted to announce a new series at Observatory developed in conjunction with master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann. Entitled Hairy Secrets: Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Mourning Jewelry, this series will explore, in a three-part  lecture series and one workshop, the history of the preservation of human remains for reasons sacred and profane, culminating in the flowering of Victorian hair art mourning jewelry, or jewelry which incorporates the hair of the beloved dead.

Full details on all events follow; hope to see you and one or more! And please note: If you are interested in attending the workshop, please RSVP to morbidanatomy@gmail.com. This class is very nearly sold out, but we are hoping to add an additional class in February if interest justifies.
_________________________________________

"Speaking Reliquaries" and Christian Death Rituals
 Date: Thursday, January 17
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Part 1 of Hairy Secrets Lecture Series

In tonight's illustrated lecture--the introductory lecture of a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will focus on what are termed "speaking" reliquaries: the often elaborate containers which house the preserved body parts--or relics--of saints and martyrs with shapes which reflect that of the body-part contained within.

Bachmann will examine these fascinating objects from an art historical perspective, and discuss their relationship to concepts of human body parts as icons of the immortal. They will be put into the larger context of Christian death rituals, in particular the veneration of saints body parts as sacred and magical relics. Also discussed will be the extremely odd proclivities of a variety of renaissance saints, such as Catherine of Sienna who drank pus from open sores. This will serve as the genesis in our further discussions of human hair, teeth, and nails as icons of the immortal.
_________________________________________

The History of the Memento Mori and Death’s Head Iconography
Date: Thursday, January 24
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Part 2 of Hairy Secrets Lecture Series

In tonight's illustrated lecture--the second in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will explore the development of the memento mori, objects whose very raison d'être is to remind the beholder that they, too, will die. Bachman will trace the symbolism and iconography of the memento mori and death's head imagery in both Medieval and Renaissance art, focusing on jewelry. She will also discuss the development of the "portable relic" -- a wearable form of body part reliquary, will be the focus of this lecture. The importance of hair in contemporaneous art of the period will be addressed, as well as the development of bereavement jewelry with hair.
_________________________________________

The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry
Date: Thursday, January 31
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $10
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Part 3 of Hairy Secrets Lecture Series

The Victorians had a love affair with death which they expressed in a variety of ways, both intensely sentimental and macabre. Tonight's lecture--the last in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--will take as its focus the apex of the phenomenon of hair jewelry fashion in the Victorian Era as an expression of this passion. Nineteenth century mourning rituals will be discussed, with a particular focus on Victorian hairwork jewelry, both palette worked and table worked. Also discussed will be the historical roots of the Victorian fascination with death, such as high mortality rates for both adults and children, the rise of the park cemetery, and the death of Queen Victoria's beloved Prince Albert and her subsequent fashion-influencing 40-year mourning period. Historical samples of hair art and jewelry from the lecturer's personal collection will also be shown.

 _________________________________________

Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewelry with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
Date: Sunday, January 13
Time: 12 - 4 PM
Admission: $75
***Must RSVP to morbidanatomy@gmail.com to be added to class list; 15 person limit
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Hair jewelry was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.

The technique of "palette working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner.

Students are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create future projects.

Karen Bachmann is a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany & Co. She is a Professor in the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as the School of Art & Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled "Hairy Secrets; Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Mourning Jewelry". In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock.

More on all events can be found here. To see all Morbid Anatomy events, click here.

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

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours, This Sunday, January 6, 1:30-6:00 PM

This Sunday the Morbid Anatomy Library (seen above) will be hosting no-appointment-necessary open hours from 1:30- to 6:00. So come on by for a perusal of the stacks and a gander at our human skeleton, tatty taxidermy and wax embryological models.

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

Photo of The Library by Joanna Ebenstein.

Creating Stereoscopic 3-D Images of Small Specimens Using a Desktop Scanner: Workshop with Stereoscopic 3-D Artist Gerald Marks, This Saturday, January 5

This Saturday! Students are invited to use objects from the Morbid Anatomy Library for scanning. If interested in attending this class, please email morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com.

Creating Stereoscopic 3-D Images of Small Specimens Using a Desktop Scanner:
Workshop with Stereoscopic 3-D Artist Gerald Marks
Date: Saturday, January 5, 2013
Time: 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM with a short lunch break
Fee: $60
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** Class size is limited to 16; please RSVP to morbidanatomy[at]gmail.com

In this workshop class you will learn to produce high-quality stereoscopic images of small objects, using a conventional desktop scanner. Everyone in the class can expect to leave with at least one 3-D picture, ready to post on a the web, email, or include in digital slide show, and the knowledge of how to do the process. With this technique, quite a bit of magnification is possible, almost rivaling microscope work.

After scanning, we will work with the images in Adobe Photoshop, using the same basic approach that the instructor has developed for Stereoscopic 3-D images in general, so you will be learning a professional technique for working with 3-D image pairs.
We will primarily view and work with our 3-D images using traditional Anaglyph Red/Blue 3-D glasses but we can output our scan work to any 3-D viewing system, including all types of 3-D projection and 3-D Television. 3-D glasses will be provided.
We will be scanning the objects on a conventional desktop scanners, such as the Epson Perfection series, and working with the scans on a laptop, using Adobe Photoshop (any version). All of the computer work on the instructor's laptop will be projected large, and in 3-D, so that it will be easy to follow.

Bring to Class
The primary thing to bring to class is the object you wish to scan. Almost anything in your collection from about .25" to about 6" wide should work, as long as it holds together. (Slime, for example, doesn't hold together) Natural or man-made objects, such as coins or medals work great. Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral are all OK, as long as it will hold still for at least two exposures. Bring additional objects as some things scan better than others and there may be time to scan more.

Bring a flash drive, or a blank CD, to put your scans on and take home

You may bring your own laptop, with Photoshop installed, but it is not required. Bring your own scanner, too, if you like (When transporting a scanner, remember to "lock" the scanner head!)

Gerald Marks is an artist working along the border of art and science, specializing in stereoscopic 3-D since 1973. He may be best known for the 3-D videos he directed for The Rolling Stones during their Steel Wheels tour. He has taught at The Cooper Union, The New School for Social Research, and the School of Visual Arts, where he currently teaches Stereoscopic 3-D within the MFA program in Computer Art. He was artist in residence at San Francisco's Exploratorium and a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Media Lab, where he worked with computer-generated holography. His Professor Pulfrich's Universe installations are popular features in museums all over the world, including the Exploratorium, The N. Y. Hall of Science, and Sony ExploraScience in Beijing & Tokyo. He has done 3-D consulting, lecturing & design for scientific purposes for The American Museum of Natural History, the National Institutes of Health, and Discover Magazine. He has created a large variety of 3-D artwork for advertising, display, and pharmaceutical use, as well as broadcast organizations Fox and MTV. He has designed award winning projections and sets at the N.Y. Public Theater, SOHO Rep, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center and the Nashville Ballet, where he created stereoscopically projected sets. He created the 3-D mural in the 28th Street station of the #6 train in New York City’s subway. He did 3-D imaging of dance around the New York shoreline as part of an iLAB grant from the iLAND Foundation for using the arts to raise environmental consciousness.

More here.

Happy New Years Everybody!

Image found here.

Morbid Anatomy Library Open Hours, This Sunday, December 30th, 1:30-6:00 PM

This Sunday, the newly post-Hurricane Sandy re-built Morbid Anatomy Library (seen above) will hosting no-appointment-necessary open hours from 1:30- to 6:00. So come on by for a perusal of the stacks and a gander at our human skeleton, tatty taxidermy and wax embryological models.

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

Photo of The Library by Joanna Ebenstein.

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed: 18th Century Italian Pathological Nativity Scene Crèches!

Towards my sincere wish that each of you has a very merry Christmas today, please accept this virtual gift: two intriguing and lovely pathologically-detailed 18th century Italian nativity scene crèche figures from the collection of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University.

An excerpt from the article on Atlas Obscura:

Holiday Creche Figures With Goiters

...The lovely ladies seen above were made to be part of a classic nativity scene, welcoming the infant Christ into the world. They are shown suffering from what was once a relatively common malady: goiters. These enlarged thyroids caused painful swellings in the throat usually due to iodine deficiency in the diet, and were particularly prevalent in Alpine regions of Europe where the soil was naturally low in iodine.

These two dolls are known as Crèche (or Presepio) figures, and are found in Nativity scenes. The country women, garbed in handmade peasant dress, have unusual features that led to their inclusion in the Yale’s Medical Historical Library. Both have prominent goiters on their necks. Goiters are swelling of the thyroid gland.

Creche figures often depicted “realistic” features, and in the 18th century, peasant and country folk were thought to be a great addition, often in the background of the scene. Figures with goiters attending the birth of Baby Jesus is an entire level of realism never expected in a Nativity scene...

We often think of the beauty associated with the Nativity, but in reality, people in earlier centuries had a variety of ailments that manifested on the outside, and weren’t removed. Skin diseases, tumors, and goiters, which we don’t often see in people with the help of modern medicine, were not unusual.

--Melissa Grafe is the John R. Bumstead Librarian for Medical History at Yale University.  

You can read the whole article--from which this is excerpted--on Atlas Obscura by clicking here. And thanks, Dylan Thuras, for sending this along!

And Merry Christmas, y'all!

Images of creche figures courtesy of the Yale University, used with permission.

“Der Struwwelpeter” (“Shockheaded Peter”), German Film, 1955, Subtitles by Art of Bleeding

More holiday cheer, this time from our friends over at The Art of Bleeding, who have just posted excerpts from the rarely seen 1955 German film “Der Struwwelpeter” (“Shockheaded Peter”) embellished with their own, as they put it, "somewhat creative subtitles." The film is based on Heinrich Hoffmann's infamous, circa 1845 Gorey- and Oompa Loompa-inspiring cautionary children's book in which ill-behaved kinder receive graphic comeuppances for a variety of misbehaviors.

You can view one of my favorites above, and check out the entire collection by clicking here.

Gruß vom Krampus and Happy Holidays Everyone!

Gruß vom Krampus and Happy Holidays, everyone!

The images you see above are all vintage Krampus postcards except for the bottom image, a photo of the special (and delicious!) Krampus cake provided by the fellas of Ghoul a Go Go for Saturday night's Morbid Anatomy and Ghoul a Go Go Krampus Party; You can see a full selection of photos from this epic evening by clicking here.

Postcards pictured above found here, here, here, here, here and here.

Happy Saint Victoria Day!

Happy Saint Victoria Day, Morbid Anatomy Readers!

More about this lovely saint--whose remains were discussed at length in yesterday's post--from Wikipedia:

Saints Victoria, Anatolia, and Audax (Italian: Sante Vittoria, Anatolia, e Audace) are venerated as martyrs and saints by the Catholic Church...

Their legend... recounts that, in the time of the Emperor Decius, Anatolia and Victoria were sisters whose marriage was arranged to two noble, non-Christian Roman men. They resisted matrimony and their prospective grooms denounced them as Christians. They received permission to imprison the women on their estates and convince them to renounce their faith.

Anatolia's suitor, Titus Aurelius, gave up, and handed her back to the authorities. Victoria’s suitor, Eugenius, was more persistent, but also ended up returning her to the authorities.

Victoria’s legend states that she was stabbed through the heart in 250 AD at Trebula Mutuesca (today Monteleone Sabino). An elaboration on her legend states that her murderer was immediately struck with leprosy, and died six days later....

Due to the translation of their relics, their cult spread across Italy. The body of Saint Victoria was transferred in 827 by Abbot Peter of Farfa to Mount Matenano from the Piceno because of the Moorish invasions. The town of Santa Vittoria in Matenano is named after her. Ratfredus, subsequent Abbot of Farfa, brought the body to Farfa on 20 June 931... Saint Victoria's preserved remains are currently on display at the Santa Maria della Vittoria church in Rome.

Image found here.

"The Macabre and Little Known Sight of Saint Victoria of Rome" : A Mystery Revealed, Thanks to the BBC

Regular readers might remember the enigmatic and gorgeous Saint Victoria (or Saint Vittoria; seen above), a life-sized saint I stumbled upon in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria directly across from Bernini's tourist-drawing Ecstasy of Saint Theresa on a recent trip to Rome. This rose-crowned and slashed-neck lady had caused me no little consternation; Was she waxwork? Effigy? Reliquary? Or some combination of the above? Sadly, churches do not have informational panels explaining such things, and I was left only to wonder as to her history and makeup.

Then, very recently, a few comments popped up on my blog from folks who had seen this mysterious figure discussed at length on the "Divine Gamble" episode of the new BBC TV series "Rome--A History of the Eternal City." I finally was able to locate a copy on You Tube and at about 12:47 minutes in, here is what I learned:

This figure, one of the cities least known but most macabre sights, appears to be a statue. But closer inspection reveals something far more spine chilling. When first you look at this, you think it must be a waxwork. But when you look a little closer, into the slightly open mouth you see, through the open lips of a skeleton. And if you look at the hands on the outside, they appear to be wax. But look inside. You can see not just the skeletal bones of the real hand of the human body but actually the dry skin there too. This is the body of Saint Victoria.

What the host does not mention explicitly is that it is, indeed, the body of the saint herself, but very much "touched up" with wax, human hair, and clothing. You can watch this segment--or the entire episode--by clicking here. You can read the former blog post by clicking here. Thanks so much to posters Cheryl, Josh and Allan for alerting me to this!

"Santa Muerte, Posada’s Mexico and the End of Times" Guest Post by Salvador Olguín, Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence

 

For this non-end-of-days end-of-days, a word on Death in Mayan and Mexican culture from new Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Salvador Olguín:

I’ve been following the Morbid Anatomy blog for quite some time. This is my second guest post in the blog (the first can be found here); this time I am officially writing as Morbid Anatomy’s new Scholar in Residence. I told Joanna Ebenstein I wanted to write a few lines to commemorate such major occasion as the end of the 13th baktun of the Mayan calendar –that is, the 13th cycle of 144,000 days since the world began, otherwise known as The End of Times. Posting this text after the announcement of the Morbid Anatomy Library’s recent acquisition of a lot of Santa Muerte artifacts, also celebrated in this article by David Metcalf, is a happy coincidence. Finally, being able to use this post to introduce Posada’s Mexico, a book about José Guadalupe Posada recently acquired by the MA library, is a real treat.

José Guadalupe Posada was a Mexican engraver and illustrator who started working in the late 1800s as a cartoonist. He produced a vast number of etchings, most of which first appeared in the news papers and cheap periodicals published in Mexico City during the last decade of the 19th and the early 1900s. Posada’s was a time of social turmoil. The publications where he worked criticized the autocratic government of Porfirio Díaz for favoring Mexico’s Europeanized higher classes over the workers and the dispossessed. In this milieu, Posada used his art to satirize the rich and powerful, but also to illustrate current events and the news: murders, cases of cannibalism, floods, earthquakes and the End of the World, which people in Mexico believed was imminent 100 years ago.

Posada created a series of iconic characters like Don Chepito Marihuano (Mr. Chepito The Pothead), a gentleman who entertained the habit of smoking large amounts of weed. You can see him holding a skull, Hamlet-style, in the bottom illustration above. One of his most iconic illustrations was La Calavera Garbancera, later baptized as La Catrina by Diego Rivera. She came to represent Death personified for all Mexicans. Posada conceived her as a working class woman of mixed Native American and European blood, wearing a pretentious French hat. Later Rivera painted her in one of his murals (4th image down), but instead of using her as a vehicle of social commentary he dressed her up in a full fancy gown, making her a proud symbol of the unification of Mexico’s dual roots: Spanish and Native American. The fact that this symbol is embodied as a skeleton shows the importance of the personification of Death in Mexican iconography, and makes La Catrina a direct precursor of Santa Muerte.

Most Mesoamerican cultures had a cyclical notion of time. There were times of destruction and times of renewal. There had been other Worlds, and other versions of Humanity in their mythical pass, and there would be new worlds and a new humanity in the future. A Mayan wouldn’t be surprised that the world didn’t come to an end: today marks the beginning of the 14th baktun. Death remains the only certain thing in life; believing She’s a person, a being that watches over us, is certainly a soothing idea. Knowing She likes to smoke, drink, and feast like Santa Muerte does is simply the best. Take a look at these images from Posada’s Mexico, now available for researchers at the Morbid Anatomy Library.

You can find out more about Santa Muerte in these recent posts (1, 2); you can find out more about our upcoming Santa Muerte lecture and party by clicking here, and more about The Morbid Anatomy Library by clicking here. You can find out more about Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence Salvador Olguín by clicking here. All images are scans from Posada’s Mexico, a book about José Guadalupe Posada recently acquired by the Morbid Anatomy library.

TONIGHT: Morbid Anatomy and Ghoul A Go-Go Holiday Krampus Party with "DEVILS" Show Premiere!

Tonight--Saturday December 22--please join Morbid Anatomy, Ghoul a Go Go and the cloven hooved Krampus himself for a booze-addled celebration of the darker side of Christmas!

You can read the Brooklyn Paper's writeup here; Full details follow; Hope very much to see you there!

Morbid Anatomy and Ghoul A Go-Go Holiday Krampus Party with "DEVILS" Show Premiere!
Date: Saturday, December 22
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $13
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

* Premiere of Ghoul A Go-Go's "DEVILS" show with Vlad and Creighton appearing LIVE!!
* A screening of the bizarro Mexican holiday classic feature film Santa Claus (1959)! The devil Pitch is on the loose! Can Christmas be saved?
* "Beelzebab "Siren of Sodom" performs live burlesque!
* Mistress Dominae Drakonis beats the naughty!
* Mulled Wine! Krampus cake! Piñata! More fun than you can beat with a stick!

Ghoul A Go-Go and Morbid Anatomy are throwing a Krampus holiday party to celebrate the world premiere of Ghoul A Go-Go's new "DEVILS" show! The ghost of Sammy Davis Jr. will not be there, but Vlad and Creighton will pour on more entertainment than a naughty child can handle. Beelzebabe, Siren of Sodom, will perform her scorching "Bad Girls Go To Hell" burlesque--an act one archbishop cited as the cause of his fall from grace! To add to the Krampus festivities, Mistress Dominae Drakonis, in all her satanic majesty, will deal out beatings to the naughty. There will be mulled wine to spice things up even further, as well as a Krampus cake. For your visual entertainment, there will be a screening of the 1959 Mexican classic film, Santa Claus, featuring the the devil Pitch. A piñata will be beaten. You will also have the privilege of being the first to see the brand new Ghoul A Go-Go episode on the big screen in all its devilish glory! To grind things to halt, there will be an Observatory styled lecture on Christmas. And then back to the party! It'll be more fun than a sack full of children so wear your best Krampus costume!

More here.