Call for Papers: Lost Museums Colloquium : Brown University, Providence, RI, May 7 and 8, 2015

I would like to share with you all a very exciting call for papers for an upcoming conference devoted to "lost artifacts, collections and museums" just in from our friends at the Jenks Society for Lost Museums at Brown University. Proposals can take the form of a traditional paper but can also be conceptual, poetic, and artistic, and are due on September 15, 2014. Full details below, and you can find out more here.

Call for Papers: Lost Museums Colloquium

In conjunction with the year-long exhibition project examining Brown University’s lost Jenks Museum, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and the John Carter Brown Library invite paper proposals for a colloquium on lost artifacts, collections and museums. (Other formats—conceptual, poetic, and artistic—are also invited.) The colloquium will be held at Brown University, Providence, RI, May 7 and 8, 2015.

Museums, perhaps more than any other institutions, think in the very long term: collections are forever. But the history of museums is more complicated than that. Museums disappear for many reasons, from changing ideas about what’s worth saving to the devastation of war. Museum collections disappear: deaccessioned, traded away, repatriated, lost to changing interests and the ravages of time.

We are interested in this process of decline and decay, the taphonomy of institutions and collections, as a way of shedding light not only on the history of museums and libraries, but also on the ways in which material things reflect and shape the practices of science and the humanities, and also to help museums think about current and future practices of collections and collections use.

We invite presentations from historians, curators, registrars, and collections managers, as well as from artists and activists, on topics including:

Histories of museums and types of museums: We welcome case studies of museums and categories of museums that are no more. What can we learn from museums that are no more? Cast museums, commercial museums, and dime museums have mostly disappeared. Cabinets of curiosity went out of and back into fashion. Why? What is their legacy?

Artifacts: How do specimens degrade? How have museums come to think of permanence and ephemerality? How do museums use, and “use up” collections, either for research (e.g., destructive sampling), or for education and display; how have they thought about the balance of preservation and use? How can they collect the ephemeral?

Museum collection history: How long does art and artifact really remain in the museum? Might the analysis of museum databases cast new light on the long-term history and use of collections?

“Lost and found” in the museum: How are art and artifacts “rediscovered” in museums? How do old collections regain their importance, both in artistic revivals and in new practices of “mining” the museum as artists finding new uses for old objects?

Museum collections policy: How have ideas about deaccessioning changed? How should they change? How do new laws, policies, and ethics about the repatriation of collections shape ideas about collections?

Museums going out of business: When a museum needs to close for financial or other reasons, what’s the best way to do that? Are there good case studies and legal and financial models?

The future of museum collections: How might museums think about collecting the ephemeral, or collecting for “impermanent” collections. What new strategies should museums consider for short-term collecting? How might digitization and scanning shape ideas about the permanence of collections?

Papers from the Colloquium may be published as a special issue of the Museum History Journal.

If you’d like to present at the conference, please send an abstract of about 250 words and a brief CV to Steven Lubar, lubar [at] brown.edu. Deadline for submission of paper proposals is September 15, 2014.

Steven Lubar

Department of American Studies

John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage

lubar [at] brown.edu

Images:

1. Gallery of classical antiquities, Brown University, about 1893. No longer in existence. Collections apparently lost. Courtesy Brown University archives.
2. The Jenks Museum at Brown University, about 1890. Only about 10 percent of the collections once in the Jenks Museum survive, and none of the natural history specimens. Courtesy Brown University Archives.

The Wonderful Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle, Cornwall

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall. This fascinating and utterly charming museum was established by occult researcher, collector and practitioner Cecil Hugh Williamson (1909 - 1999); it is said to house the largest collection of witchcraft- and Wicca-related artifacts in the world.

Founder Cecil Williamson was a rather interesting character, somewhat in the school of idiosyncratic folklore collector Edward Lovett (1852-1933). He became interested in witchcraft as a small boy, when, as the story goes, he became friends with a local witch after coming to her aid against a group of thugs attacking her. Soon after, at boarding school, he met a "wise woman" who taught him some "simple yet effective" magic against the school bully, who then went on to break his leg in a skiing accident. Later, as a young man he traveled to Rhodesia to work on a tobacco plantation, where he met and studied the African Witchdoctors who he found to be using startlingly similar techniques to English "wayside witches" he knew so well from childhood.

In 1930, he returned to the UK and continued his studies--and presumably, collecting--of the occult, developing relationships with such experts as E. A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum, Egyptologist and anthropologist Margaret Murray, and historian Montague Summers. Soon after, he was recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service (M I 6) to do undercover research on the occult interests of the leaders of the Nazi party, which led to the formation of his "Witchcraft Research Center." He went on to develop friendships with legendary occultist Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern Wicca, who became "Witch in Residence" of the Museum of Witchcraft for some time until the two went their separate ways over differing visions for the museum's future (Sources 1, 2, 3, 4).

The Museum of Witchcraft was founded in 1951, the same year in which laws against the practice of witchcraft were finally repealed in Britain. It is a charmingly homespun and, at the same time, obsessively encyclopedic, intensely human and incredibly well researched museum. Located atop a ridiculously picturesque and windswept Cornish harbor, within you will find a mind boggling collection of artifacts, images, artworks and texts organized along such themes as "Depictions of Witches" (old hags, devil worshipers, mysterious beauties in paintings, advertisements and figurines); "Persecution" (a 17th century copy of King James I's Daemonologie, historical texts, torture instruments); "Divination" (black mirrors, tarot cards, crystal balls); "Amulets, Protection Magic and Charms" (bees in a bag, moles feet, protections from the evil eye); "The Devil and the Horned God" (the development of the Christian Devil from hooved and horned pagan gods); "Healing Magic" (herbs, potions, healing figures and wax poppets); "The Magic of Christianity" (exploring the irony that most of the people persecuted during the witch hunts were Christians utilizing sacred objects of Christianity in their spell such as holy wafers with special writings, votive offerings, and statues of the saints); and, the most fascinating--and somewhat chilling and surprising--"Curses or Natural Justice," with its many dolls, wax poppets and photos stuck through with pins; birds skulls in a nest; wax poppets in coffins; and a wax-entombed sparrow in a "sexy red shoe."

Museum captions throughout were fascinating, informative and accessible, and the whole was kind of a strange combination of homey and subversive. In short, this is one of my all time favorite museums, a truly idiosyncratic flowering of installation, scholarship, humanity and personal obsession. Truly an inspiration to aspiring museologists (like myself).

All photos above are my own; you can see a full set by clicking here and larger versions by clicking on them. You can find out more about the museum by clicking here. You can download a copy of the museum guide--which has much more information about the history adn exhibits--by clicking here.

Thanks so much to Mark Pilkington, Mike Jay and Chiara Ambrosio for so rightfully urging me to make the pilgrimage to this wonderful place.

Dream Summer Course in Florence? Museum Studies: Museum Origins Course; Applications Due April 1

Via The Attic:

Museum Studies: Museum Origins Course
Summer Course for MAs or PhDs in Italy

--Do you ever wonder why people collect things?
--How did 15th century private desires to own collections lead to the museum as we know it today?
--Why is Florence, Italy, considered one of the birthplaces of the modern museum?
--Find out this summer in Museum Origins!

June 10- August 3: An 8-week course that blends online learning with onsite investigation (in ITALY!) and scholarly research.

Open to current graduate students and alumni of master's or Ph.D. programs in any field from any college or university

Great for students in art, art history, literature, history, public history, anthropology, psychology, museum studies, library & information science, classics - all majors welcome!

• First three weeks: Course readings and discussions online.
• Middle two weeks: You go to "class" in museums in Italy.(How cool is
• that?!)
• Last three weeks: You write a research paper.
• After the course: An experience that lasts a lifetime.
• APPLY NOW! Applications are due April 1!

And more, from the Kent State website

Class limit: 15 participants
Open to: Graduate students at any institution
Alumni of any graduate program (master’s or Ph.D.)
NOW ACCEPTING UPPER-DIVISION UNDERGRADUATES FROM ANY INSTITUTION, ANY MAJOR! 

Itinerary in Florence:
Morning: Visits to museums
Afternoon: Discussions and lectures at Kent State Florence Palazzo de Cerchi

Course Description
While the collecting of objects can be found as far back as ancient times in various parts of the world, the birth of the modern museum finds its roots in Europe, especially in Italy. In the context of today’s world, students will “go back in time” to understand the origins of Western museums and the meaning of publicly shared collections through a series of competing dualisms in knowledge creation and organization. Students will explore the history of the modern museum and spend two weeks visiting actual sites and collections that played a role in this history. Exploring the past in this way is geared specifically to help today’s museum workers gain a better understanding of their own role and purpose in their community, society and nation.

This course is part of a Museum Studies specialization within the Master of Library and Information Science degree at Kent State School of Library and Information Science. Museums, like libraries, are in the information business. The museum studies courses at Kent State employ a holistic approach to the study of museums as institutions that generate and perpetuate knowledge. Students will gain an understanding of museums in context as dynamic, interactive information systems composed of people, objects, and activities. Because the SLIS courses are structured within a library and information science framework, students are able to cut across the spectrum of traditional academic disciplines, which strengthens the skills of future museum professional by giving them a broader perspective, a larger knowledge base, and more flexibility. Students in the Museum Origins class do not need to be in the M.L.I.S. program, but should understand this unique approach to the discipline of museum studies.

More here.

Image: "The Tribuna degli Uffizi," Johann Zoffany, 1772-1779; found here. Click in image to see larger, more detailed version.

It Came from the Stores, Exhibition, Grant Museum of Zoology, London, Through August 31, 2012

“A lovely skeleton, but sadly lacking a skull,” laments one of the tags afforded to the remains of a Capuchin monkey in this show of the unseen at the ever-exotic Grant Museum. “Rarely do ‘incomplete’ specimens make the grade for display.”

When I am in London, I will most certainly be checking out the wonderful sounding exhibition "It Came from the Stores," on view at the incomparable Grant Museum  until August 31st.

You can find out more here.

Image caption: An elephant shrew is among the specimens on show at the Grant Museum of Zoology

© UCL, Grant Museum of Zoology

Kokdu Museum, Seoul, Korea

A few days ago, I paid a visit to The Kokdu Museum, a small and charming museum here in Seoul devoted to the Korean tradition of kokdu, or painted wooden figures created to accompany the deceased on their treacherous journey through the afterlife. These figures would be placed--by the dozen, as it appears--on the ornate traditional funeral biers which carried the dead to their final resting place. From what I understand, all of the pieces on view in the museum were created in the late Joseon Dynasty, which dominated Korea from 1392 – 1897.

The kokdu figurines, as the museum text explains, are other-worldy creatures intended to assist the deceased in their transition through the afterlife. Some are guides, some protectors, some entertainers. They help to "soothe and calm our bewildered emotions while traveling the path of bereavement..." so long as the deceased "still remains in the area of between the 'already' and the 'yet.'"

Dragon and goblin heads are placed on the front and the back of the bier. The are intended to frighten evil spirits and signify the circularity of life and death.



The museum also had a wonderful miniature diorama depicting a funeral procession.






And a terrific (though small) temporary exhibition entitled "Afterlife, The Journey to the Other World." As the wall text explained:

The exhibition "Afterlife, The Journey to the Other World," was derived from traditional Korean belief, called Siwangsasang, which described that the deceased must go through ten after-death trials about his/her previous life.

Among those ten were seven commonly known trials, and people counted those days accordingly and had a memorial ritual on the 49th days of death.

Joseon dynasty was a strictly Confucianist era which greatly valued filial duites. Other religions such as Buddhism, Taoism and Shamanism were able to retain their power because Joseon people saw a great deal of filial duties in ancestral rites.

By studying Joseon dynasty (1392-1910)'s religious movement, we've learned that all these different religions and cultures melted in together and brought our culture a cultural synergy, which is known as the Medici Effect.

It is very interesting to learn how all these different religions and cultures combined and developed a new cultural nuance on the subject, the other world.

As mentioned earlier, this exhibition is based on these cultural influences regarding the other world and the afterlife. This exhibition was also greatly influenced by "With God," a web cartoon that depicts this other world as an interesting and realistic place.
With "With God" and KOKDU MUSEUM's old antiquities, this exhibition also introduced augmented reality technique and media art so that visitors can experience a mixture of art and science throughout the show.

This exhibit allowed visitors to travel through the afterlife, meeting each King of Hell and discovering both what traits he would judge you on and what were the possible punishments. Each stop on the journey was illustrated by traditional artworks depicting these Kings and their punishments as well as images from the "With God" web comic.



You can find out more about the The Kokdu Museum, by clicking here. Thanks very much to Professor Choi Tae Man of Kookmin University for recommending this museum to me!

For those interested in finding out more, I purchased a book from the museum--in English!--which will be available for viewing at The Morbid Anatomy Library when it reopens in early October.

The Story of Henry Wellcome on the BBC

The BBC has just posted a lovely little narrated slide show about Henry Wellcome, founder of the Wellcome Trust and Library and compiler of one of the most extraordinary medical collections in the world. The piece is narrated by my friend Ross MacFarlane of the Wellcome Library, who is an unofficial specialist on Mr. Wellcome and his fabulous collection; you can check it out (highly recommended!) by clicking here.

All images taken from the slide show, and feature Wellcome's collection.

THIS SATURDAY! Brains in Jars, Old Libraries, and Underground Crypts in New Haven, Connecticut

We have a few more slots open for our awesome all day field trip this Saturday. See following for details, and email me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com if you'd like to come along!

FIELD TRIP: Day of Brains in Jars, Old Libraries, and Underground Crypts in New Haven, Connecticut
A chartered bus field trip to New Haven, Connecticut with guided tours of The Cushing Brain Collection, The Institute Library, and The Center Church Crypt and an unguided visit to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Date: This Saturday, July 16th
Time: 10:00 AM- 7 PM
Admission: $60
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** MUST RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com

This Saturday, July 16th join Observatory and Morbid Anatomy for a special field trip to New Haven, Connecticut. Our first stop will be the amazing Cushing Collection, with its over 500 human brains in glass jars and haunting pre- and post-operative photographs amassed by "father of modern neurosurgery" Dr. Harvey Cushing. We will be introduced to this collection-- newly open to the public--via a guided tour by Terry Dagradi, curator of the collection. Our next stop will be the historic and lovely Institute Library (founded 1826), Connecticut's oldest living independent literary institution and one of the last remaining membership libraries in North America, where director Will Baker will give us a tour followed by an opportunity for unguided exploration and lunch. Next, we will be treated to a special after-hours tour of the Center Church Crypt, an underground cemetery featuring 137 grave stones of New Haven's founders and earliest citizens going back to 1687. Our final stop will be an unguided visit to the incredible Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library before hopping on the bus for our return home.

Trip Details: The $60 event cost of this event includes round trip transportation on a special chartered bus from Observatory to New Haven and back again as well as tour costs. Please bring your lunch, which we will have an opportunity to eat at our second stop. The bus will pick up and drop off in front of the 543 Union Street (at Nevins Street) entrance to Observatory. Pick up is 10:00 AM sharp and drop off approximately 7:00 PM depending on traffic.

There is a limit for this trip, so please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com if interested.

Images: Of and from The Cushing Collection as featured in The New York Times.

Field Trip, Anyone? or, a Day of Brains in Jars, Old Libraries, and Underground Crypts in New Haven, Connecticut

Anyone fancy a chartered bus trip to view the legendary Cushing Collection (pictured above), an underground crypt, and a couple of libraries thrown in for good measure? Yeah; me too! Hope very much to see you there.

FIELD TRIP: Day of Brains in Jars, Old Libraries, and Underground Crypts in New Haven, Connecticut
A chartered bus field trip to New Haven, Connecticut with guided tours of The Cushing Brain Collection, The Institute Library, and The Center Church Crypt and an unguided visit to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Date: Saturday, July 16th
Time: 10:00 AM- 7 PM
Admission: $60
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
*** 28 Person Limit; MUST RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com

On Saturday, July 16th join Observatory and Morbid Anatomy for a special field trip to New Haven, Connecticut. Our first stop will be the amazing Cushing Collection, with its over 500 human brains in glass jars and haunting pre- and post-operative photographs amassed by "father of modern neurosurgery" Dr. Harvey Cushing. We will be introduced to this collection-- newly open to the public--via a guided tour by Terry Dagradi, curator of the collection. Our next stop will be the historic and lovely Institute Library (founded 1826), Connecticut's oldest living independent literary institution and one of the last remaining membership libraries in North America, where director Will Baker will give us a tour followed by an opportunity for unguided exploration and lunch. Next, we will be treated to a special after-hours tour of the Center Church Crypt, an underground cemetery featuring 137 grave stones of New Haven's founders and earliest citizens going back to 1687. Our final stop will be an unguided visit to the incredible Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library before hopping on the bus for our return home.

Trip Details: The $60 event cost of this event includes round trip transportation on a special chartered bus from Observatory to New Haven and back again as well as tour costs. Please bring your lunch, which we will have an opportunity to eat at our second stop. The bus will pick up and drop off in front of the 543 Union Street (at Nevins Street) entrance to Observatory. Pick up is 10:00 AM sharp and drop off approximately 7:00 PM depending on traffic.

There is a 28 person limit for this trip, so please RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com if interested.

Images: Of and from The Cushing Collection as featured in The New York Times.

"Freaks and Monsters and Fairies, Devils, and Fantasy Tour of Florence," Fall, 2011, Dr. Kathryn Hoffman

Friend of Morbid Anatomy Kathryn Hoffmann of the University of Hawaii, Manoa has just announced that she will be leading a "Freaks, Monsters, and Fairies, Devils, and Fantasy" tour of Florence, Italy this upcoming fall semester. The tour will take in, in Hoffman's own words, "wax anatomical models of course, as well as the devils of Florence, reliquaries, the history of court and fairground stars with corporeal anomalies, and the original dark version of Pinocchio, where he came to a sad end in Book 5. I'm going to teach and take students out of the classroom and into the museums and churches."

Applications are due on April 1; for more information, email professor Hoffman at hoffmann [at] hawaii.edu.

So wish I could make it!

Please click on the image to see a much larger version.

Last Weekend to View the Amazing Museum of Everything Exhibition #3, London

This is absolutely the last weekend to view the much heralded (and not just by me) Museum of Everything Exhibition #3 in London. And, in a bittersweet farewell to this amazing exhibition, the folks at The Museum of Everything have put together a thoroughly action-packed final weekend featuring a variety of exciting programming.

Full details for the weekend's activities follow; and please, I implore you, if you live near London and have not yet seen this exhibitions, do yourself a favor and go! You won't be sorry. I promise.

>> VALENTINE’S WEEKEND <<

As far as we’re concerned, Valentine’s Weekend starts at 10:30am on Friday 11th February 2011; so fire up your hot-tub, cover yourself in love-gel and prepare yourself for what may well be the greatest weekend in the history of weekends.
For your delectation we shall have muzac - all day, every day - our favourite artistes performing in nooks and crannies right across the museum, be it accordion solos, tubas, one man bands, human jukeboxes, Punches, Judies, or perhaps just a lonely snare drum announcing the reveille.

And if you pop down at 4:00pm on Sunday 13th February 2011 you might be treated to a private viewing of that rarely seen gem - Pop Goes the Easel - directed by that randy rambunctious ruddy red rolicker, Ken Russell, as part of The Midgets & Giants Film Festival.

Who knows, the movie may even be introduced by Sir Peter Blake himself ...

For it is Sir Peter Blake who we have to thank for this astonishing show, for his brilliant eye, his enduring aesthetic, his wit, his love and his support. They say you never forget your first love and he is most certainly ours.

"The Museum of Everything was the highlight of my London trip, I can’t believe you’ll close! "Cindy Sherman, January 2011

Cindy’s right, this really is your very last chance to see the astonishing tapestries of Ted Willcox, the animal empire of Walter Potter, the magical funfair of Joby and Anna Carter and the miniature fairgrounds of Arthur Windley.

Come Monday monring, it’s adieu dear friends - perhaps for a few weeks, perhaps forever – because our plans are up in the air, we can’t commit, although we do have our roving eyes on Russia, the Americas, the Middle Yeast, even London’s glittering West End. The world is our Oyster Card ...

Until next time, we remain yours in Everything:

The Museum of Everything
right behind the library on the corner of Sharpleshall
Street & Regents Park Road in Primrose Hill London NW1
www.musevery.com

For more on the Museum of Everything #3, see this recent post.

Images are all drawn from postcards available at the Museum of Everything gift shop. A lovely (if slightly expensive) book is available also. Click here for more.

"The Keeper of Curiosities" Royal Ontario Museum in the Wall Street Journal

A nice appreciation of the cabinet of curiosity approach to contemporary museum curation in today's Wall Street Journal:

At the [Royal Ontario Museum, aka ROM ], objects taken from its separate collections (fine and decorative arts, history, textiles, archaeology, geology, mineralogy, paleontology and zoology) are often mixed and matched in highly interdisciplinary displays to create a narrative not often seen in the more specialized museums that we are used to. For example, English dresses and slippers from the late 18th and early 19th centuries are displayed next to African and Asian clothing of the same era, alongside printing blocks and a wall-text description of berries used to produce dyes, because one of the points being made is how colors and patterns were dyed or printed onto these fabrics. Comparisons are being drawn about widely divergent cultures and industrial practices.

"In so many museums, curators are telling the story of the objects on display—why this is in the collection, why that is an important piece—while we're trying to use the objects in our collections to tell a story about how people go about their lives here and elsewhere around the world, and often about the intersection of the natural and cultural worlds," she said.
Here's another example: A display contains ceramic vases, silver, clocks, weathervanes and furniture from the 18th century, across from painted portraits of men, women and children who lived in Canada back then. None of the individual objects have their own labels, and only some wall text describes life in that time. Who were those people in the portraits? Who painted them? Where were those chairs and vases made? Did those people own that silver? Presumably, the curators know and aren't telling us. At the ROM, the point isn't so much the individual objects as creating a big-picture view of life at a certain time and place. "We encourage visitors to make connections in their own minds," Ms. Carding said...

The ROM is in some ways a throwback. Before people traveled so much or had such wide access to books and photographs (in short, an education), 18th- and 19th-century museums were cabinets of curiosities that provided a world of collected knowledge, a walk-in encyclopedia of objects both natural and man-made, practical and artistic. It is rare to find this type of institution anymore; museums now are more and more specialized...

Like the original cabinets of curiosities, there is a little something for everyone, but not so much as to bore people. Known as the "Stair of Wonders," the landings between floors have their own miniature displays—seashells or insects or battalions of metal toy soldiers—to perk up interest when it may be flagging. There's also a life-size, walk-through diorama of the St. Clair Cave in Jamaica, with its plaster-cast hanging bats, insects and stalagmites (based on ROM scientists' work at the site). "People here talk about their old favorites; so many people just love the bat cave," Ms. Carding said.

You can read the full article--from which the excerpt is drawn--by clicking here.

Image via Ddrees Art.

Run Don't Walk to see The Museum of Everything Exhibition #3, London, Closing December 24th

On a very quick jaunt to London from which I have only just returned, I was very, very fortunate (thank you so much, Mr. Pat Morris!) to have had the opportunity to visit the now fully-installed Museum of Everything Exhibition #3, which I only had seen in its half-ready state a few days before exhibition opening a few months back.

All I have to say is: WOW.

The Museum of Everything #3--curated by the British pop and ruralist artist Sir Peter Blake, perhaps best remembered for his design of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album--is truly a wonder. This immersive spectacle of an exhibition celebrates popular art in the broadest of senses, both in content and in installation, and uses as its departure point Blake's own formidable private collection of such works supplemented by artifacts and artworks drawn from a variety of other privately held collections.

The installation of the exhibition is delightful, fun-house-inspired and immersive, with dark hallways, rickety stairs, and surprising turns leading you into rooms devoted in turn to--among other things--pitch cards and souvenir photos of fun-fair freaks, Victorian circus banners, marionette collections, Punch and Judy sets, Victorian anthropomorphic taxidermy, shell work pieces and a reconstructed shell grotto, Victorian découpage and other paper craft, and musical toys that go off in unison every half hour or so, filling the entire space with a beautiful circus-music cacophony. Each room has a feeling all its own, with a style of installation particularly and artfully suited to the artifacts within.

Mr. Blake's own collection provides the framework for the exhibition--as the casually-narrated exhibition labels, often in Blake's own unaffected voice make clear--but of equal if not greater importance are supplementary collections drawn from a broad variety of other passionate private collectors. Some of the most impressive effects of the exhibition come from the ingenious curation of artifacts drawn from a large number of private collectors into a single assemblage, such as my favorite, the magnificent homage to Walter Potter's Museum of Curiosities. This installation not only re-unites for the first time many of Potter's famously over-the-top taxidermalogical tableaux with wall-art, photographs and other ephemera from his recently disbanded collection, but also contextualizes his work within the broader theme of Victorian taxidermy, anthropomorphic and otherwise, with lavish Victorian bird jars, depictions of boxing squirrels (a popular Victorian taxidermy trope, I am told) and a variety of "straight" taxidermy pieces as well.

The whole of this literally fantastic exhibition is held together by the exuberance and inventiveness of the installation--never art-world and never boring, labyrinthian in structure and bristling with work floor to ceiling--and by the homespun exhibition labels narrating the exhibition in the informal voice of Blake and some of the other collectors and artists. Through the sum of its parts, the exhibition serves also as a reminder of what pop art meant before it became just another art-world term and white-room enshrined product: a celebration of the "homely arts," the arts of the people and of everyday life, of the fairground and the parlor. It is also a reminder that art can be fun, appeal to the senses, not be in a white room, and still make you think.

If you CAN see this exhibition before its December 24th closing, I simply cannot recommend it highly enough. Intriguing, brilliant, thought-provoking, and a lot of fun.

The Museum of Everything is located at the corner of Regents Park Rd and Sharples Hall St, NW1 8YL. For more information, visit the exhibition website by clicking here.

You can find out more about the Museum of Everything at this recent blog post as well.

Images are all drawn from postcards available at the Museum of Everything gift shop. A lovely (if slightly expensive) book is available also. Click here for more.