I found this private museum over the weekend while Grace and I were doing our weekly Saturday morning internet surfing. We usually kick the kids down stairs, force them to watch tv and try to get a little peace. It doesn't always work perfectly but it's become our thing when we have the occasional free weekend. The Ettore Guatelli Museum is located in Parma, Italy. It houses a collection of roughly 60,000 "everyday" items arranged throughout the building in complex and interesting displays. Grace pointed out that it wouldn't be as impressive if the items were not organized and displayed in the manner you see in some of these photos but that's what makes it such a great place. Finding beauty in the mundane is nothing new but the shear size of the collection and the commitment they undoubtedly have to keep it organized and interesting is amazing.
Another gem from the Museum of Jurassic Technology [This is the last one, I swear!], Henry Dalton's (1829-1911) micromosaics were also on view in one of the darkened galleries. Visible only through the peephole of a microscope, his tiny collages are made entirely from dried algae and the scales of butterfly wings. That's right, not even glue is holding these beauties together.
When I first saw the work I thought they were intricately inlaid stones, which would have been impressive enough. But after discovering they were actually made from butterfly wings—and scales of wings, at that—I was bowled over by his use of the material. THEN I read about his painstakingly precise process on the museum's website, and my brain was totally blown:
"The microscopic creations of Henry Dalton were the fruit of extraordinary skill, remarkable patience and a keen aesthetic eye. After devising a design, Dalton would collect numerous butterfly wings of multiple species from all over the world. Carefully striping off individual scales with a needle, each scale was then sorted by color, size, and shape creating a extensive palette. Boar bristle in hand, Dalton would then transfer each scale to the slide. Positioning a scale was a laborious task, one that required the use of a microscope and a small tube through which he would breathe to gently move each scale over the glass to its appointed position. Once in place, Dalton would crush a small tiny spot of the scale against the slide, allowing internal oils to act as a natural adhesive. Many of Dalton's remarkable micromosaic preparations would require as many as one thousand individual scales."
Another curious exhibit at the Museum of Jurassic Technology was on folk remedies and superstitions, the glass-enclosed displays for which held various vignettes illustrating the "vulgar knowledge" that was prescribed way back when to cure whatever it was that ailed ya.
For instance, mouse cures were apparently some of the oldest beliefs featured in the exhibition wherein mice are caught and prepared for a wide array of health concerns from whooping cough to chilblains (frostbite). It was thought that bed wetting could be controlled by eating mice on toast, fur and all (above). Another delicacy in the same display case called Mouse Pie was thought to straighten out children who stammered if eaten on a regular basis.
A case labeled Salted Teeth described the practice of covering extracted teeth in salt, then burning them to ward against an animal finding and chewing them and in so doing, turning whatever new tooth that grew in the child's mouth into a tooth that looked liked the animal's that found it. Quite a mouthful.
Apparently if a child had thrush they could put the bill of a duck or goose in their mouth and inhale their cold breath, correcting whatever mouth fungus or throat disorder that may have plagued them. I couldn't imagine finding a duck that would sit still long enough to let you put its bill in your mouth. Or a child for that matter.
Some of the displays offered warnings rather than health advice. The one above contained two disembodied wax hands clasped around a little bird to illustrate the knowledge that holding a dying creature during childhood would leave the offender with trembling hands for life.
There were a few other interesting displays in the exhibition, but as you can see, it was so dimly lit in there that I couldn't get too many clear photos. It did help add to the unsettling atmosphere of the place though, which of course made it one of the best things I'd seen that week. I can't imagine a better treat than dead, stuffed mice spread on toast.
Looks like this whole week is going to be pretty L.A. heavy. What can I say? That city was GREAT. Another fun excursion from our trip out west was our visit to LACMA. Besides the fantastic California Design exhibit that initially drew me to that veritable culture compound (they had Charles and Ray Eames’ entire living room with all of its contents cataloged, moved, and set up inside the gallery, down to the very same tumbleweed the couple collected on their honeymoon hanging from the ceiling; a lovely, romantic mobile), I really wanted to see the Edward Kienholz exhibit that was also installed on campus. (Seriously, this place was SPREAD OUT. There were buildings upon buildings upon buildings FULL of art. And! It’s where I had my one and only celebrity sighting all week: Jon Voight on his way to the men’s room. [Celebrities! They pee just like us!])
Edward Kienholz was born in Fairfield, Washington in 1927, and was a major player in the California avant-garde art movement of the 50s and 60s. Kienholz is primarily known for his assemblage sculpture and large-scale installations where he combined found objects with figures cast from life to depict scenes that commented on racism, violence, sex, corruption, and the moral hypocrisy of society.
Five Car Stud 1969-1972, Revisited is a graphic life-sized tableau that depicts four cars parked in a circle in a large dark room with a dirt floor. The only source of light in the space comes from the cars' headlights shining on a gang of angry white men castrating a black man who had just been discovered with a white woman in a nearby pick-up truck. The viewer is permitted to walk into the scene and among the brutality, to peer into the ugly faces of the monsters who are ripping this man apart, his body cavity ripped open to reveal letters that spell a racial epithet, floating in a pool of water inside him. The fact that you could get so close to the violence, the darkness of the space pushing you right into the action, the gravity of the situation enveloping the viewer entirely, was something I'd never experienced before. It is even now, years after it was originally created, still incredibly disturbing to behold. Created at the end of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, it was one of Kienholz' most controversial works, and because of this, it was only shown once in Germany, after which it was purchased by a Japanese collector and has remained in storage for the last forty years until now. Nancy Reddin Kienholz, the artist's wife and collaborator (LOVE that!), restored the work in advance of its exhibition at LACMA.
I read that after Edward died in 1994 while hiking in the mountains near their home in Idaho, his body was buried in a Kienholz installation; in the front seat of a 1940 Packard Coupe, a dollar and a deck of cards in his pocket, a bottle of wine by his side, and the ashes of his beloved dog in the backseat, the car steered into a big hole by Nancy. Seems to me like a truly fitting and poetic way for the artist to ride into the sunset.
Just got back from celebrating Thanksgiving in L.A. with Micky and friends. It was an amazing looong weekend spending time with some very fun funny people, touring a beautiful sunny city I’d never seen before. The summer after I graduated from college I had planned an epic drive cross-country with an impractically long list of odd Americana destinations (The World’s Largest Ball of Twine was definitely a highlight) I wanted to visit along the way. The Museum of Jurassic Technology had always been at the top of my agenda, but sadly, once we finally reached the West Coast we were running short on time and had to bypass the city entirely. Sigh. But this time—THIS time I was not going to let this strange little museum get away from me!
I’d read a fascinating little book about the museum a few years back called Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology by Lawrence Weschler, so I was eagerly expecting to see all of the items enumerated in the title and then some. Once inside the museum’s dim, dark warren of galleries, I was elated to discover that there was indeed oh so much more. There was a whole room devoted to oil portraits of the dogs from the Soviet Space Program, and another full of trailer park dioramas, and still another with exquisite micromosaics visible only through the narrow lens of a microscope. I may end up splitting this into a few posts so I can do the collection justice, but for now I’ll start with what I came for: the human horn.
Mounted and hung on a wall with other animal horns on display, the human horn was dark, hairy, and wonderfully repulsive.
Here’s the museum placard:
Ok, so I guess we are being led to believe that this isn’t the ACTUAL human horn from the description. 1688? It would probably be a pile of dust by now, unless they had gone to extraordinary lengths to try and preserve it. Maybe it’s just a model of the real thing. Either way, I’ll take it.
While I do love specimens and oddities of all sorts, it is Mary Davis' story that really captivated me when I did further research. Horns and hair and hooves are all made of the same keratin protein, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility that one could grow on a person’s head. That I can wrap my mind around. But apparently, Mary Davis eventually had it removed only to have it grow back again a few years later. Then when she had that one removed, it happened again. Shudder to think.
I'm sure there's a cornucopia/horn of plenty joke in there somewhere. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!
Alexander McQueen was a brilliant British fashion designer who committed suicide last year at the age of 40. Despite the fact that his life was cut short far too soon, he managed to produce a vast amount of incredible work, and after his death, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum immediately set about organizing a retrospective of his oeuvre. According to the New York Times, by the time it closes on August 7th (after having been extended twice), the exhibition is expected to set attendance records and will be among the 20 most popular shows ever held at the museum. Because of the crushing crowds, the Met has also decided it will stay open until midnight on the last two days of the exhibition to accommodate last minute viewers, something they have never done in the history of the museum. Pretty impressive, huh?
So last Friday, after receiving the wonderful and unexpected gift of an afternoon off because of the heat crisis plaguing the city, my coworker and I decided to head uptown to check out the Alexander McQueen show. I heard the wait to get in was over 2 hours long, something I was not looking forward to, but totally willing to put up with. Surely 1 o'clock on a Friday afternoon wouldn’t be so bad though, right?
The museum was mobbed, and immediately upon entering the building, I accidentally separate from my coworker. Ten (near frantic) minutes later he appears with two tickets and says he bought a membership so we were allowed to skip to the head of the line. It seemed too good to be true! We made our way up the grand staircase and followed the looooooong winding row of wait-ers in and out of the museum’s halls. Once we finally found the front of the queue, JP flashed his member’s only receipt and we were ushered right past the velvet rope.
First, there was the ombre-dyed ostrich feather dress with a bodice made of microscope glass plates that were colored blood red. Along with McQueen’s fascination of juxtaposing various textures and materials, an interesting interplay of hard and soft, I found a shared affinity in his appreciation of the dark and macabre.
Back in the day, the spray paint dress was really the one that first inspired me.
The video of the dress being made was on view in this amazing charred cabinet of curiosities room. As soon as I got home, I tracked down as many of his runway shows on Youtube as I could. Every one of them was more like highly orchestrated performance art than some tired old parade of dresses.
Then there was the dress with mud on the hem. The dried muck curled, unfurled away from the fabric of the skirt, looking like growths of moss or bracken lifting off the fabric, tendrils reaching out into space. Of course the top of the dress was also very striking, intricately beaded and draped, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the grit.
And my favorite favorite, the razor clam shell dress. It looked like a beautiful bunch of long, white Lee Press On Nails.
