Showing posts with label bones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bones. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

"Bone," The Florence Nightingale Museum, London, July 19th thorugh August 31

Exiting upcoming exhibit alert just in from my friend Natasha McEnroe at the Florence Nightingale Museum:
BONE

19 July – 31 August 2012
Florence Nightingale Museum
2 Lambeth Palace Road London SE1 7EW

This summer, the Florence Nightingale Museum will host an eclectic exhibition of around 60 objects that explores the rich history and substance of bone, across cultures, throughout time and between disciplines.
Mobile Studio Architects will transform part of the museum allowing visitors to explore objects including an x-ray of Sigmund Freud's head, a cat skeleton to ward off evil spirits, a skull shaped candle made for Marilyn Manson's wedding, a contemporary apothecary jar showing the effects of syphilis on bone, cutting edge medical bone imaging and Florence Nightingale’s pet tortoise ‘Jimmy’.
The exhibition will reflect bone’s intriguing and multi-faceted story in its objects as well as through live performances and demonstrations by biomedical researchers and clinicians, forensic archaeologists, bone carvers, dancers, historians, artists and other professional bone users.

Simon Gould, BONE Curator says:
“I am so excited to be bringing together some of the most extraordinary objects from more than a dozen of London’s museums and collections along with remarkable medical expertise and acclaimed contemporary artists. Bone is an astonishing material and this exhibition promises to bring this to life for the visitor.”

Natasha McEnroe, Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum says:
“In the heart of London’s Southbank in this Olympic year, we are thrilled to be hosting BONE and to offer our visitors an even more inspiring experience. Following the museum’s hugely successful refurbishment in 2010, this multi-disciplinary exhibition will further establish the Florence Nightingale Museum’s position on London’s cultural and scientific map”.
More can be found here.

Images, top to bottom:
  1. It is 19th bone china, that has been “up-cycled” by Melody Rose to add the skull image. “Reproduced by Courtesy of Melody Rose.”  
  2. 1908 x-ray of Parissien woman in a whalebone corset.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Apologies from Italy









My sincere apologies for the lack of postings and emails, and a special thanks to all of those who have so generously sent in recommendations for places to visit. I am still on the road in Italy with only intermittent internet access and days filled to the brim with museums, churches, anatomical theatres, ossuaries and reliquaries. As a teaser, here are a few of the things Evan Michelson and I have been encountering on our trip thus far. Evan has been posting more details than I; you can find them here. I will post more--with details, I promise!-- very soon upon my return!

Click on images to see larger versions.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

"The Bones of Tenants Whose Burial Rental Was Not Renewed--Santa Cruz Cemetery, Manila," Stereograph, Circa 1899


Title: The bones of tenants whose burial rental was not renewed--Santa Cruz Cemetery, Manila
Creator(s): Strohmeyer & Wyman.,
Date Created/Published: New York : Strohmeyer & Wyman, publishers, c. 1899.
Medium: 1 photographic print on stereo card : stereograph.
Summary: Two men examine a skull from pile of exhumed skulls and bones in cemetery.
From the Library of Congress, Stereographic Card Collection; Via Defrag Tumblr.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Tomorrow Night: "A Gathering of Bones" Lecture with Evan Michelson, Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence and star of TV's Oddities, Coney Island Museum


Tomorrow night, why not consider joining me and Morbid Anatomy scholar in residence (and star of TV's "Oddities") Evan Michelson at Coney Island for her new lecture "A Gathering of Bones?" If her former lectures are any indication, this is sure to be a great one!

The event--which will take place within the newly opened Great Coney Island Spectacularium!--begins at 7:30. Drinks are half price at the bar until 8:00. Hope very very much to see you there!
"A Gathering of Bones," an Illustrated lecture by Evan Michelson
Date: Monday, April 11
Time: 7:30 PM
Admission: $5 (or free with Congressional Pass)

Location: The Coney Island Museum (1208 Surf Avenue)

Human bone: one of the most common materials on the planet. And yet, at one time the remains of certain individuals were prized more highly than the rarest, most precious metals and gems. The cult of the saints, the backbone of the early Christian Church, gave rise to an institutional fetishization of human remains that produced objects still unsurpassed in craftsmanship and opulence.

The aesthetic of the most humble and commo...n organic remains coupled with gold, silver, gems and textiles has for centuries proved irresistible to secular collectors and religious institutions alike. The ultimate collectible, the constituent parts of each and every human on the planet were once the object of obsession, veneration and murderous desire. As a collector myself, Christian relics provided my earliest exposure to the realm of transcendently beautiful, perverse and venerated objects.

The collection and categorization of human remains underwent a drastic change with the enlightenment, but the unquenchable human thirst for knowledge and comfort in the face of our own mortality has ensured that the corpus remains at the center of an unending human fascination with and confrontation of the greatest mystery of all. The gathering of bones continues to this day, still controversial, decadent and utterly essential to the human narrative.

This event is part of The Morbid Anatomy Library Collector Series.

Click here to purchase tickets ($5 each)

This event is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
Image: Galileo's finger mounted on a marble base and encased in a crystal jar, as on view at the Museum of History and Science in Florence, Italy. More on that--and image source--here. Click on image to see much larger, more detailed version.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

"Death Takes A Holiday," Osteo-Architecture Travel Blog











The Portuguese have a morbid fascination with bone chapels (perhaps we can coin the term “osteo-architecture”), there are probably more here per capita than anywhere in the world...
Thanks to Friend-of-Morbid-Anatomy Paul Rumsey for drawing my attention to the astounding photo collection and travel reportage of self-named "LuDwigg VaNn beethoVeen​" as showcased on his MySpace Blog entitled "Death Takes a Holiday" and committed--or so it seems--to visiting and documenting the finest necropoli, “osteo-architecture," and concentrations of mummies and religious waxworks in the entire world, including sites in Ecuador, Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Newark, New Jersey.

The above sampling of images is just a tiny fraction of the many incredible images to be found on the blog. Please click on each one to see much larger and more detailed versions. To see many more astounding images and to find out more about these spectacular sites, visit his "Death Takes a Holiday" blog by clicking here. Thanks so much, Paul, for sending this amazing treasure trove along!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Bones Issue of Cabinet Magazine, 2008





So what went on in the anatomy halls? What did medical students do? They played. With the dead... --"Bone Play," Mike Sappol and Eva Ahren

I have just received my copy of the Bones Issue of Cabinet Magazine. Highlights thus far include Mike Sappol and Eva Ahren's "Bone Play" (from which the above images and quotation are drawn) and Scott F. Gilbert and Ziony Zevit's "Congenital Human Baculum Deficiency," which will make you rethink the biblical story of Adam's rib in the most fascinating of ways. Other articles touch on the mummies of Palermo, paleontology, and trepannation. Well worth checking out.

Note on images: Second image down, caption reads "Photograph from the dissection hall at the Academy of Surgery, Copenhagen, C. 1910; Bottom image, caption reads: A lithograph by Edward Hull depicting Death interrupting an author before his writing is complete, 1827.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Jodie Carey, 21st Century




Artworks made from icing, blood, and human hair and taking the form of bones, memorial wreaths, and chandeliers. Good stuff, found via Phantasmaphile.

P.S. Doesn't image 3 look just a little bit familiar?

Jodie Carey, 21st Century




Artworks made from icing, blood, and human hair and taking the form of bones, memorial wreaths, and chandeliers. Good stuff, found via Phantasmaphile.

P.S. Doesn't image 3 look just a little bid familiar?