Not what you’d normally find on your mother’s mantle, Justin Novak twists the snooty figurine into a self-mutilating mockery, because none of use are pristine figures.

Novak says of his work:

The ceramic figurine has historically embodied a mainstream, bourgeois ideology, and for this reason, I have employed it in the presentation of an alternative vision, an ironic anti-figurine, or ‘disfigurine.’ In the ‘disfigurine’ series, physical wounds such as bruises and lacerations serve as metaphors for psychological harm. Whereas the figurine has historically represented the dominant culture’s norms and ideals, the disfigurines speak of the damage inflicted by those very same expectations

View all of Justin’s work at justinnovak.com.

[via Dentsu London]

Source:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/streetanatomy/OQuC

Motorbikes are a popular interest of mine, I think they look beautiful and I hope to own one some day. These bikes immediately took my fancy and I hope they take yours.

John Farr is a custom bike designer and creator who made this beautiful piece of machinery named ‘The Crypt’. The motorcycle is now a jaw-dropping spectacle when its cruisin’ around, continuously being stopped for pictures.

John Holt is a self taught metal bender and the creator of this motorcycle ‘Iron Death’. Holt started off making medieval styled armour and now owns a shop in Boone County, Illinois, where the bike was originally built. The bike now lives in The Petersen Automotive Museum in L.A.

Getgeared.co.uk are selling a The Universal Motorcycle Mirror Skeleton Hand for £39.95 each for your own custom anatomy.

Artist Eric Tryon, fashioned together this marvellous bicycle, flexible enough so that when you turn so does the skull.

Jud Turner designed this artwork named the ‘Bio-Cycle’ along with other skull inspired creations and anatomic bikes.

The motorbike styled toy I thought was quite cute, The Boneshaker Skeleton Motorbike is 26cm in length and is £19.15 from Amazon.co.uk

Source:
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These masterfully rendered typographical medical prints were the creation of designer, doctor and future cardiologist, Stephen Gaeta.  Stephen originated the popular diploma heart posted back in March 2011—so popular that the surge in traffic almost crashed Street Anatomy!

We’ve had the honor to team up with Stephen to bring you this series of typographical medical prints, Beat Poetry, Extra Ocular, Reactant, and Transgenic.

Beat Poetry 11" x 17" on eco-friendly thick matte stock

Text taken from Cases of the Organic Disease of the Heart, with Dissections and Some Remarks Intended to Point Out the Distinctive Symptoms of These Diseases, by John Collins Warren, 1809

Beat Poetry detail

Extra Ocular 11" x 11" on eco-friendly thick matte stock

Text taken from The Motions of the Retina Demonstrated by Experiments, from Zoonomia, by Erasmus Darwin. 1794.

Extra Ocular detail

Transgenic 17" x 11" on eco-friendly thick matte stock

Text taken from Chromosome 1 of the Human Genome Project

Transgenic detail

Reactant 11" x 17" on eco-friendly thick matte stock

Text taken from The Sceptical Chymist, by Robert Boyle. 1661<.small>

Reactant detail

Each print is:

• Created with text from classic medical literature pertaining to each subject
• On eco-friendly thick matte stock
• Printed sustainably using 100% wind power, responsibly harvested paper and vegetable based printing ink
• Available for $25 at the Street Anatomy store!

Source:
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Katsuyo Aoki is a Japanese ceramic artist with a nack for designing intricate skull-inspired sculptures. Winning award after award, Aoki takes the form of a human skull and transforms it into a complicated maze of ceramic beauty.

…I use ceramics as my material in my method of expression, incorporating various decorative styles, patterns, and symbolic forms as my principal axis in creating my works. The decorative styles and forms I allude to and incorporate in my works each contain a story based on historical backgrounds and ideas, myths, and allegories. Also, the technique of ceramics has a tradition that has been a part of the history of decoration over a long time, and I feel the delicateness and fragile tension of the substantial material well express my concept.

Check out the video of her work; even though the whole thing is in Japanese, it doesn’t stop the art looking incredible.

Source:
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For all of you New Yorkers out there: friend of Morbid Anatomy Jonathon Rosen has just alerted me to an amazing sounding class he'll be teaching as part of The School of Visual Art's continuing education series. He has also asked me to give a lecture as part of the course, so maybe I'll see you there!

This class is open and available to all; full details below. Hope very much to see you there!

Not for the Squeamish: The History of Artists and Anatomists

ILC-2196-A

T, Sep 20 - Nov 22

Hours: 06:30PM - 09:15PM

2.50 CEUs; $335.00

Course Status: Open

Location: TBA

Register for this class by clicking here!

Temple of the soul or soft machine? The human body is a place where art, science, culture, politics and medicine intersect. This lecture/studio course will focus on artists from ancient to modern who use the body as a point of departure for personal, political, religious or scientific commentary, and will provide an opportunity for students to do likewise. The influence of traditional medical imagery on contemporary art-making and pop culture will be explored through the lens of history, culture and aesthetics. Examples will range from medieval manuscripts and obscure Renaissance medical surrealism through enlightenment era wax-works, Victorian charts and medical devices to Damien Hirst, the virtual human project, Bodyworlds, and beyond. Aesthetic surgery, genetics, biomechanics, medical museums, anatomy in movies, French underground comix and anatomical oddities will also be considered. Your assignment will be to respond to the lectures with several editorial artworks that incorporate medicine or anatomy-be it personal or political, singular or narrative, 2D or 3D, static or moving. Students may use the medium of their choice; projects are not required to be anatomically correct. Prerequisite: A basic drawing, photo-collage or photography course, or equivalent.

Jonathon Rosen

Painter, illustrator, animator

One-person exhibitions include: La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles; Adam Baumgold Fine Art; Studio Camuffo, Venice

Group exhibitions include: Triennali, Milan; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; P.S. 1, Contemporary Art Center; Kunstwerk, Berlin; Exit Art

Publications include: American Illustration Annual, Print, World Art, LA Weekly, Eye (London)

Books include: Intestinal Fortitude, The Birth of Machine Consciousness

Clients include: The New York Times, Snake Eyes, Time, Rolling Stone, MTV, Blab!, Sony Music, The Ganzfeld, Details. Journal drawings for Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton, director

Awards and honors include: Gold and silver medals, Society of Publication Designers; artist-in-residence, Harvestworks

Website: http://jrosen.org/

You can find out more--and register!--by clicking here.

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Image: Museum of Anatomical Waxes “Luigi Cattezneo” Bologna, Italy, part of the Anatomical Theatre Exhibition © Joanna Ebenstein

Call for papers: Cultures of Anatomical Collections International Conference, Leiden University 15-18 February 2012

The conference ‘Cultures of Anatomical Collections’ will explore anatomical preparations and collections (preparations of human material as well as wax- and other models) as important parts of our cultural heritage. This means that we treat them in a similar way as we would examine other historical artifacts stored in today’s museum. Although the history of anatomy and anatomical illustrations has been a popular topic in the history of medicine during the last decade, the history of its material remains has been somewhat neglected. And yet, in particular when taking into account recent historiographies of materiality and medical practices, it offers challenging interdisciplinary questions on the history of anatomy as a whole. Possible topics include: How do the technical details of anatomical preparations tell us about the ideas of their maker; How do ideas on beauty and perfection shape preparations; How were preparations handled and used for teaching purposes: How does the interest of non-medical audiences shape anatomical preparations? On collections as a whole we can ask: How are particular collections build up; How do decisions of curators affect the build-up of collections; How does the housing of a collection affect its outlook and popularity?

The conference has keynote lectures and the following sessions:

Keynote Lectures : Ruth Richardson and Andrew Cunningham

1. Beauty, Perfection and Materiality in Early Modern Anatomical Collections Organiser: Marieke Hendriksen ; Confirmed speaker: Anita Guerrini

This session deals with questions regarding the materiality and aesthetics of early modern anatomical preparations. So far historians of medicine have described the beauty and perfection of early modern anatomical preparations using modern (post-Kantian) understandings of aesthetics. Yet, early modern anatomical preparations must be related to early modern ideas of aesthetics, which were about beauty and perfection as well as about sense perception and experiment. Possible questions include: How does the materiality of preparations tell us more about contemporary ideals of beauty and perfection and vice versa? How can changes in theses ideals be traced in the make-up of anatomical collections? How are beauty and perfection related to natural philosophical ideas on sense perception and experiment? How do ideas of beauty and perfection relate to the morality of the early modern anatomical theatre?

2. Anatomical Collections and Scientific Medicine in the Nineteenth Century Organiser: Hieke Huistra; Confirmed speaker: Simon Chaplin

With the birth of the clinic and the introduction of laboratory methods, medicine in the nineteenth century changed profoundly. At first sight it would seem as if these changes would pose a threat to the position and function of anatomical collections in research and teaching. This was, however, not the case – institutional anatomical collections flourished in the nineteenth century. In this session we explore questions such as what were the status and function of early modern collections in the nineteenth century? How were old (in most cases early modern) preparations displayed and used in the new scientific medicine? How did the use, content, accessibility and display change during the nineteenth century? How did the new collections relate to the ‘new’ disciplines of comparative anatomy and pathology?

3. Handling Anatomical Collections Organiser: Rina Knoeff; Confirmed speakers: Sam Alberti, Tim Huisman

This session is directed at exploring the role of the curator of the anatomical museum. Almost invisible and hardly discussed in historical discourse, he is daily busy and literally in touch with the collections. He has always been of utmost importance for the making of preparations and the general outlook of anatomical collections. Possible questions include: What are the tasks of a curator and how have they changed over time? How did/does a curator determine the outlook of a preparation and collection? How did/does he influence the focus, significant silences and boundaries of collections? How did/do his responsibilities oscillate between professional medics and the public? How did/does he merge the interests of these two groups?

4. Anatomical Collections as Public History Organiser: Rina Knoeff; Confirmed speaker: Anna Maerker

This session is about the role of the public in the making and survival of anatomical collections. Faced with recent controversies surrounding the public exhibition of human material (in particular Körperwelten) anatomical museums are faced with the questions of which exhibits should be on show, for what purposes (teaching or general interest?) and how they should be exhibited. Yet, these questions are of all times – after all, anatomical collections have almost always been publically accessible. Studying the history of anatomical collections from the public perspective can answer questions such as how are historical preparations presented in (today’s) museum and how have their public meanings transformed over time? How has public curiosity been regulated? How has the public eye influenced the presentation of a preparation?

5. Comments and Final Discussion Organisers: Rina Knoeff, Marieke Hendriksen, Hieke Huistra, Rob Zwijnenberg.

Contact: Rina Knoeff on r.knoeff@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Deadline: Proposals for 20 mins. papers can be send to Rina Knoeff until 16 September 2011.

You can find out more about this excellent looking conference here. Thanks to Kristen Ehrenberger for sending this along!

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Picture books teach children the facts of life. We are always reading about reproduction. Reproduction also describes what communication media do—multiply images, sounds and text for wider consumption. This exhibition is about these two senses of reproduction, about babies and books, and the ways in which they have interacted in the past and continue to interact today. Before reproduction there was generation, a broader view of how all things come into being than passing on the blueprint of a particular form of life. Before electronic media there were clay figurines, papyrus, parchment, printed books and journals. The interactions between communication media and ideas about reproduction have transformed the most intimate aspects of our lives.

This from the new exhibition "Books and Babies: Communicating Reproduction," which will be on view at Cambridge University Library through December 23, 2011. For those of you who are unable tovisit in person (like myself!), you can console yourself with the excellent web exhibition--from which the above images are drawn--by clicking here. You can find out more about visiting the exhibition here.

Thanks to Nick Hopwood and Eric Huang for sending this to my attention!

Images:

1. Aristotle’s Works: containing the Master-Piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-Bearing Women. With various useful remedies (c.1850). Private collection, frontispiece and title page
2. From Omnium humani corporis… (1641), an anatomical booklet made up of woodcut illustrations copied from earlier books under the supervision of Walther Ryff, a prolific producer of texts intended for a broad range of readers.
   
3. Plate from Cesare Lombroso's textbook L’Uomo Delinquente ... (1889)

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It has just come to my attention that Bloomsbury Auction House in London, England will be auctioning off a pretty epic collection of 729 lots related to "conjuring and circus"--a few of my favorites above--this Thursday September 8th.

You can find out more--and learn how to bid!--on the Bloomsbury Auction website by clicking here. Thanks so much to Morbid Anatomy reader Janine Veazue for sending this along!

All images sourced from the auction website; details about each can be found here.

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