Wonder Cabinets
bioephemera | August 27, 2008
Surgical suture sampler, circa 18th cen.
Zurich Medical History Museum
Photo from Ickybitty's photostream
. . . unless your grandma was a trauma surgeon. This antique sampler from the Medical History Museum in Zurich represents a variety of stitch techniques appropriate for different anatomical regions and types of injury. Both the embroidery and the illustrated backing are rendered in remarkable detail:
bioephemera | August 19, 2008Very Slow, Very TiredMachine-Animals
Nicholas Lampert, 2006
I promised last week to review the MoMA exhibition "Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities." Since making that promise, I've heard from several more friends that they've been to see it - so perhaps this review is preaching to the choir! I was extremely impressed with the breadth and curation of this show, and would go again, if I were in NYC.
Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities, arose in mid-sixteenth-century Europe as repositories for all manner of wondrous and exotic objects. In essence these collections--combining specimens…
bioephemera | August 13, 2008Le Corbeau Volant, 1875
Edouard Manet
While in NYC last weekend, I squeezed in an hour at the MoMA to see their exhibition Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities (July 30-Nov 10, 2008). It's really phenomenal. The main criticism I heard as I wandered the gallery was that the collection was perhaps a bit incoherent and scattered, and that may be true, but order barely imposed on a chaotic diversity of specimens is the essence of a wonder cabinet - isn't it?
This was one of the specimens that caught my eye: a simple, fluid lithograph of a flying raven by Edouard Manet. It's from the…
bioephemera | April 27, 2008
. . . wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine has made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature has wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included. . . [Bacon]
Welcome to the sixth edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities carnival. Whether your taste runs to Wunderkammern or Curiosities, blogs are treasure rooms for modern collectors of the strange and marvelous. Let's start with this perfect miniature cabinet of crochet motifs by JPolka at the oh-so-aptly named…
bioephemera | April 8, 2008S. Watson's American Museum of Living Curiosities
British Library, via Museum of Hoaxes
It will be my pleasure to host the April edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities blog carnival created by Tim at Walking the Berkshires. According to Tim, here's what you're in for:
What I have in mind is show and tell for grown ups. As with the Wunderkammer of old, the curiosities in this virtual cabinet will include oddities and marvels of natural history, cryptozoology, archeology and ethnography, historical or religious relics, artifacts, mementos, talismans, specimens and ephemera: in short, a carnival…
bioephemera | April 2, 2008Silvio, 2005
turtle shell, brass hardware, beads, bone, antique vestment trim, leather, glass eyes Jessica Joslin
I sat down on the Metro this morning and read a most inauspicious horoscope:
"Your interest in things unusual, unexplained, bizarre and at times tasteless is likely to make it difficult for you to find a friend."
Hey! That's not nice!
But then I realized that next up on my blogging to-do list was the new book by artist Jessica Joslin, Strange Nature. Joslin makes incredible sculptures fusing dead animals, scrap metal, and eerie staring glass eyes. And I began to wonder if my…
bioephemera | March 4, 2008
Gary Gygax, who died today at age 69, has a special place in my heart - but not for the obvious reason. I was never a disciple of his famous creation, Dungeons & Dragons. I grew up in a rural, conservative area, and while I'm sure there were a few gaming groups around, they were neither very popular nor co-ed. Perhaps as a result, the gaming bug never bit me - I've never played Magic, Myst, WoW, or any other fantasy game more complex than Castle Risk.
But circa 1983, one of those obscure local fantasy geeks upgraded to the D&D Monster Manual II, abandoning his well-worn Monster…
bioephemera | February 28, 2008
"Fetus Egg"The Museum of Food Anomalies
If you've ever seen Darwin's face on a piece of toast, or a midsaggital brain section in a Michelangelo, you'll love MoFA, a repository of culinary pareidolia.
bioephemera | February 25, 2008
Ron Pippin at Obsolete
One of my favorite mixed-media artists, Ron Pippin, just completed a stunning wonder cabinet of a show at Obsolete Gallery. Browsing the interactive panoramas on his website is like tiptoeing through the workshop of a slightly unbalanced Victorian scientist.
Book #8
Ron Pippin
In his latest work, Pippin creates altered notebooks worthy of some jungle-crazed alternate-history Darwin, ominous glass specimen boxes, and flying half-biological automata of uncertain purpose. If you're in the Laguna Beach area, you can see his work in person at Trove.
Ron Pippin's website…
bioephemera | February 25, 2008Well, this is funny. A new illustrated book about wax anatomical models - long one of my favorite topics - is about to be released. It's called "Ephemeral Bodies." Hey, did I write this book? I don't remember doing it. . . but who knows, it's been a crazy year.
The blurb:
The material history of wax is a history of disappearance--wax melts, liquefies, evaporates, and undergoes innumerable mutations. Wax is tactile, ambiguous, and mesmerizing, confounding viewers and scholars alike. It can approximate flesh with astonishing realism and has been used to create uncanny human simulacra since…
bioephemera | February 19, 2008The following is my most popular post, by far, from the "old" bioephemera (originally published Jan 5, 2007). I'll do a repost each week for the next few weeks to give new readers a taste of the blog. . .
Anatomical Teaching Model of a Pregnant Woman
Stephan Zick, 1639-1715
Wood and ivory
Kunstkammer Georg Laue is a Munich antique/art gallery informed by the sensibility of the "wonder cabinets" (kunst- or wunder-kammer) of 17th century Germany. One of the interesting objects described on the site is this ivory model of a pregnant woman with removable parts, including internal organs and a…