Just came across this really fantastic and unusual collection of 19th Century Japanese medical woodblock prints on the Pink Tentacle website, which sourced them from the extensive University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Japanese Woodblock Print Collection website.

As the UCSF website explains:

The UCSF Japanese Woodblock Print Collection consists of four hundred Japanese woodblock prints on health-related themes. Of those, more than half are colorfully illustrated in the ukiyo-e manner, the remainder being printed single-sheet texts. From the treatment and prevention of diseases like smallpox, measles, and cholera, to the stages of pregnancy and drug advertisements, these prints offer a unique window into traditional Japanese attitudes toward health and illness.

The majority of the prints date to the mid- to late nineteenth century, when Japan was opening to the West after almost two hundred and fifty years of self-imposed isolation. Thus, they provide valuable pictorial evidence for the effect of Western medical science on traditional beliefs and practices.

Five subject areas broadly define the collection. The treatment and prevention of three contagious diseases; smallpox, measles, and cholera; are topics for eighty of the prints. A related category includes prints in which Buddhist or Shinto deities intervene to ensure a cure. Pregnancy and women's health issues form a distinct theme, including several images of the stages of gestation. Because foreigners were thought to carry disease to Japan, the collection also includes several maps of Nagasaki, where the Dutch were confined during the Edo period, as well as prints depicting foreigners and their ships. Drug advertisements from the nineteenth century make up the largest category...

The woodblock prints in this collection offer a fascinating visual account of Japanese medical knowledge in the late Edo and Meiji periods. Collectively, they record a gradual shift, by the late nineteenth century, from the reliance on gods and charms for succor from disease, to the adoption of Western, scientific principles as the basis for medical knowledge. They show the introduction of imported drugs and vaccines and increased use of printed advertisements to promote new medicinal products.

You can view the entire collection on the UCSF website--arranged by the themes Contagious Disease, Drug Advertisements, Foreigners & Disease, Religion & Health and Women’s Health--by clicking here.

I HIGHLY recommend clicking on each image to view larger, richer, and more detailed image.

Image captions top to bottom:

1. Shinto god from Izumo province for preventing measles -- Taiso Yoshitoshi, 1862
2. Pregnancy guide -- Hamano Teisuke, 1880
3. Illustrated guide to parental obligations -- Utagawa Yoshitora, 1880
4. Pregnant women playing in summer heat (5 heads, 10 bodies) -- Utagawa Kunitoshi, 1881
5. Chasing measles away -- Utagawa Yoshimori, 1862

From Pink Tentacle via Ellettrogenica.

Greetings folks.

I am in the midst of planning a trip to Scandinavia around the upcoming Congress for the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences on the theme of ‘Contemporary medical science and technology as a challenge to museums' to be held at Medical Museion in Copenhangen, September 16-18.

More on that conference--at which I will be delivering a paper--soon (though the impatient among you can see the full line up here); for now, I mention it only as an excuse for soliciting suggestions from Morbid Anatomy readers regarding private, curious, arcane, and overlooked museums, collections, sights and curiosities that one shouldn't miss in this part of the world, of which I know frightfully little.

Any suggestions very much appreciated! Suggesters can leave comments on this post or email me at morbidanatomy@gmail.com.

Thanks so much!

Image: The Biologiska Museet, Stockholm--which is very much on my list!--from Picasa user Traci Brandon.

Next Tuesday at Observatory please join Morbid Anatomy for “Behind the Scenes and Under the Skin” or, “The Body at Blythe” an illustrated lecture by Lisa O'Sullivan, Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum of London. As many of you no doubt know, the Science Museum houses the incredible collection of 100,000 or so of the artifacs amassed by Henry Wellcome, tiny glimpses of which you see above; the collection will be discussed and pictured at much greater length in Tuesday's lecture.

Hope very much to see you there.

“Behind the Scenes and Under the Skin” or, “The Body at Blythe”
An illustrated talk by Lisa O’Sullivan, Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum, London
Date: Tuesday, September 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Join Lisa O’Sullivan, Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum, London for a behind-the-scenes look at the Museum stores. As is the case for many large museums, only about 5% of the Science Museum’s objects are ever on display. This is an opportunity to see some of the other 95% - as photographed by Morbid Anatomy’s Joanna Ebenstein on a recent visit.

The Museum’s ‘small objects’, all 203,000 of them, are stored at Blythe house, an early 20th century office building (larger objects live in aircraft hangars in the West of England). Over 100,000 of these artefacts are medical, the majority from the Wellcome collection. Over 30 rooms hold objects from Roman votives to mediaeval saints, x-ray machines to. The collection displays the breadth of Henry Wellcome’s collecting, and vision of medicine.

Lisa will conduct a virtual tour of some of the rooms, highlight some of her – anatomical – favourites amongst the objects, and take questions about life ‘backstage’ at the Museum.

Lisa O’Sullivan is the Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum in London, where she curates the Wellcome collections. She is responsible for the anatomical collections, and all issues relating to human remains in the museum. Lisa’s doctorate looked at the construction of nostalgia as a clinical category in nineteenth-century France. In addition she has degrees in medical anthropology, history and literature. In 2010, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney.

You can find out more about this presentation by clicking here. To find out more, see this recent post, from which the above images were drawn.You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

My boyfriend and I finally made a much-anticiated pilgrimage to the wonderful Edward Gorey Museum in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts a few weeks ago. We were far from disappointed by what we found!

The museum (see photos above) is located in the home of the recently deceased author/illustrator/eccentric Edward Gorey. The home has, sadly, largely been cleared of Gorey's legendary clutter--though a few tantalizing fragments from his private collection can be found scattered about--and transformed into a compact house-museum dedicated to the man's life and work.

Part of me wishes they had simply left the place as it was at Gorey's death, and allowed visitors the opportunity to wander around the famously idiosyncratic environment in which the man produced so many of his iconic works. However, I was quickly won over by the museum's small-town- quirky charm, and the pretty great displays, which included original drawings and half-finished inked works, reproductions of his sketchbooks, amazing ephemera and souvenirs from Mystery and his Broadway production of Dracula, one of his raccoon fur coats, many of his Doubleday book covers, a number of his handmade stuffed animals, many coveted rare works such as his fantastic peepshow, and scores of other artifacts. The gift-shop was also seriously incredible--with scores of Gorey-themed souvenirs I had never seen before--and the folks running the museum were lovely to talk to, knowledgeable and passionately devoted to the man and his work.

In all, the museum really managed to capture the atmosphere and spirit of Edward Gorey's peculiar and alluring universe, with all its whimsy, quirkiness, and elegance; one gets the feeling that Edward Gorey himself might almost have approved, if he had been capable of approving of any museum devoted to his own life and work.

If you are a fan of Mr. Gorey, I cannot more highly recommend making a pilgrimage of your own to the Edward Gorey House Museum. You can find out more about it--including hours and directions--by clicking here; you can visit their awesome gift shop by clicking here. If you would like to make a virtual visit, you can view the full set of photos documenting my own trip--from which the sample above is drawn--by clicking here.

Tomorrow night at Observatory! Hope very much to see you there.

Documenting the Invisible: Spiritualism, Lily Dale, and Talking to the Dead
An illustrated lecture by photographer Shannon Taggart
Date: Tuesday, August 31
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Spiritualism is a loosely organized religion based primarily on a belief in the ability to communicate with spirits of the dead. The movement began in upstate New York in 1848 when two young girls named Margaret and Kate Fox claimed to be in contact with the spirit of a dead peddler buried beneath their home. Photographer Shannon Taggart first became aware of Spiritualism as a teenager when her cousin received a reading in Lily Dale, NY, The World’s Largest Spiritualist Community. A medium there revealed a strange family secret about the death of their grandfather that proved to be true. Taggart became deeply curious about how someone could possibly know such a thing.

Thus began a five year photography project focused on Modern Spiritualism. During her image making she immersed myself in the history and philosophy of Spiritualism, had more readings than she can count, experienced spiritual healings, took part in séances, attended a psychic college and sat in a medium’s cabinet, all with her camera. Despite this exposure she finds herself no closer to any definitive answer of what it all means. She feels as if she has peered into a mystery.

Shannon Taggart is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA in Applied Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her images have appeared in numerous publications including Blind Spot, Tokion, TIME and Newsweek. Her work has been recognized by the Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, the International Photography Awards, Photo District News and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace, among others. Her photographs have been shown at Photoworks in Brighton, England, The Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Redux Pictures in New York, the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and most recently at FotoFest 2010 in Houston. For more about Shannon Taggart, visit http://www.shannontaggart.com.

You can find out more about this event here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Ron with the Fox Sisters, Founders of Spiritualism; Lily Dale, NY © Shannon Taggart

The last decade has revealed a burgeoning interest and fascination with human skin, particularly among philosophers, writers, artists and designers. Meanwhile, regenerative medicine has seen major advances in the development of artificial skin designed to improve the structure, function and appearance of the body surface that has been damaged by disease, injury or ageing. So there couldn't be a better time to get under the surface of this subject.--Lucy Shanahan, Wellcome Collection Curator and co-curator of 'Skin'

I have been hearing excellent reports from scores of people about the new Wellcome Collection exhibition entitled, simply, 'Skin.' Sadly, I will not be able to see it in person (as it closes on September 2th), but the images above--most drawn from the exhibition website--and the web exhibition text make it clear that the Wellcome has done it again: a thoughtful, broadly considered, and lovely investigation and survey into the science, meaning, art, and implications of the notion of 'skin.'

More about the show, from the press release:

The skin is our largest organ. It gives us a vital protective layer, is crucial for our sense of touch and provides us with a highly sensitive and visible interface between our inner body and the outside world. Spots, scars, moles, wrinkles, tans and tattoos: the look of skin can reveal much about an individual's lifestyle, health, age and personality, as well as their cultural and religious background. The skin is also remarkable for its ability to regenerate and repair itself.

The multidisciplinary exhibition 'Skin' takes a predominantly historical approach, beginning with early anatomical thought in the 16th and 17th centuries, when, for anatomists, the skin was simply something to be removed and discarded in order to study the internal organs. The story continues through the 18th and 19th centuries and approaches its conclusion in the 20th century, by which time the skin was considered to be of much greater significance and studied as an organ in its own right.

The exhibition will incorporate early medical drawings, 19th-century paintings, anatomical models and cultural artefacts juxtaposed with sculpture, photography and film works by artists including Damien Hirst, Helen Chadwick and Wim Delvoye.

The 'Skin' exhibition will be complemented by the 'Skin Lab', which features artistic responses to developments in plastic surgery, scar treatments and synthetic skin technologies, including two newly commissioned works by the artists Rhian Solomon and Gemma Anderson. Visitors are invited to participate in an interactive and sensory experience - experimenting with skin-flap models used in plastic surgery, trying on latex skin-suits or studying biological jewelery.

For more about the exhibition including hours and visiting information, visit the Wellcome Collection website by clicking here. You can visit the image galleries--from which most of the above images were pulled and which contain many more riches--by clicking here.; Credits and captions for images follow. Also, if you are, like me, a fan of the Wellcome and its work, you won't want to miss tonight's lecture at Observatory featuring Wellcome Collection curator Kate Forde; click here for more on that.

Images:

1. Wax Model, Tiña favosa generalizada (Widespread tinea favosa), c. 1881, by Enrique Zofío Dávila, courtesy of Olavide Museum, Madrid
2. Xteriors VIII' by Desiree Dolron, 2001-08. Reminiscent of Dutch Old Master painting, this ethereal photograph seamlessly blends the everyday with the historical and the mythical. It creates an atmosphere of melancholy associated with death, which is implied in the gaunt form and ghostly pallor of the child's skin, though the true narrative remains a mystery.
3. Superficial blood vessels of the head and neck. Coloured mezzotint by J F Gautier d'Agoty, 1748. In some écorché drawings, the skin is only partially removed.
4. Vertebral column with dissections of nerves and blood vessels, with skin in the background, and (left) the figure of a man representing Ecclesiastes. After Johann Georg Pintz, 1731.
5. Vagina, perineum and anus, from 'Nouvelles Demonstrations d'Accouchemens'. Jacques-Pierre Maygrier, 1822-25.
6. Human skin hanging in a frame. Thomas Bartholin, 1651.
7. Démence Précoce Catatonique Dermographisme. L Trepsat, 1893. From 'Nouvelle Iconographie de la Salpêtrière', 1904. During the second hald of the 19th century, the belief spread that the phenomenon of dermatographism (or 'dermographism', or 'skin writing') was linked to hysteria and other mental or nervous disorders. Here a female patient at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris has had her diagnosis 'Démence précoce' (dementia praecox) 'written' on
   her back.
8. Areas of psoriasis on the back of a 30-year-old man, c. 1905.
9. A notebook allegedly covered in human skin, c. 1770-1850. The label reads: "The cover of this book is made of Tanned skin of the Negro whose Execution caused the War of Independence". This presumably refers to Crispus Attucks, who was the only black victim of the Boston Massacre of 1770, and who was immediately celebrated as an American hero. In 1888 a memorial to him was erected on Boston Common. If authentic, this exhibit might therefore, somewhat couterintuitively, suggest an act of honour and acclaim. Close examination suggests that the cover is probably not made of human skin.
10. A selection of tattoos on human skin. Anonymous, 1850-1920. Selected from over 300 examples of human skin collected by Henry Wellcome, these specimens are most likely to be French in origin and date from 1850 to1920. The tattoos were bought in Paris in June 1929 by Peter Johnston-Saint, one of Wellcome's purchasing agents. The seller was osteologist and anatomist, La Vallete, who had obtained some of his collection of specimens through his work at Parisian military establishments and prisons. The crude designs in this selection are mainly of nude female figures, which were often worn by prostitutes as markers of their trade, but were also popular among seamen, soldiers and prisoners as reminders of a woman left behind, or as general sexual fantasies.

Tonight at Observatory! Hope to see you there.

It’s Scotland Jim, But Not As We Know it: The W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum - A Brief History
An illustrated lecture and virtual tour by Chris Smith, Curator of the W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Date: Friday, August 27
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight, Chris Smith, curator of the W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, will give a brief history of the Museum, its collections and the role it plays today. As part of the southern-most Medical School in the world, this isolation can be both a hindrance as well as of benefit; but with its foundation built upon a strong Scottish heritage, the traditions of Anatomical Teaching have been sustained and continue to strengthen in this proud institution. From the early plaster, wax and papier-mâché through to todays technologies of 3D imaging and plastination, you will be given a whirlwind tour of this collection and some of the personalities responsible for its creation and development over the last 135 years.

Chris Smith is a trained Secondary School Teacher with 10 years experience in teaching and education and a passion for the collection, teaching and preservation of history. Chris changed gears in 2005 to take up the role as Anatomy Museum Curator and Anatomy Department Photographer at the University of Otago. In this role Chris has maintained and further developed the use of anatomical specimens, both historic and modern, for teaching and research, as well as increasing public awareness of the collection and the history of the museum and department. In 2007 and 2008 he traveled to Thailand as part of the Bio-archaeology team to excavate and photograph human remains at Ban Non Wat (Origins of Angkor Project), a prehistoric Neolithic to Iron Age site. He regularly attends conferences within New Zealand and neighboring Australia, visiting institutions and collections and in 2008 received a Queen Elizabeth the 2nd (QEII) Technicians’ Study Award, which enabled him to visit institutions and collections in United Kingdom and attend the European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Science Congress held that year in Edinburgh. It was at this event that he and Joanna crossed paths and as such with a visit to meet new family in the US in 2010 and making contact with Joanna, he has been put in this privileged position of being able to share a little about ‘his’ museum.

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Tomorrow night at Observatory, join Kate Forde--curator at the amazing Wellcome Collection in London--to learn about the rise and fall of the popular anatomical museum in 19th century Europe as detailed in The Wellcome’s recent ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition. Long-time readers might recall this blog's extensive coverage of the exhibit, for which I served as curatorial adviser and designer. Images above all depict artifacts included in the exhibition.

You can find out more about the show here, here and here and see a preview of the lecture here.

Full details below; this is going to be a truly stellar event; hope to see you there!

Exquisite Bodies: or the Curious and Grotesque History of the Anatomical Model
An illustrated lecture by Wellcome Collection Curator Kate Forde
Date: Thursday, August 26
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Tonight, Kate Forde of London’s Wellcome Collection will deliver an illustrated lecture detailing the rise and fall of the popular anatomical museum in 19th century Europe as detailed in The Wellcome’s recent ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition.

The ‘Exquisite Bodies’ exhibition, which was curated with the assistance of Morbid Anatomy’s Joanna Ebenstein, was inspired by the craze for anatomy museums and their artifacts–particularly wax anatomical models–in 19th century Europe. In London, Paris, Brussels and Barcelona displays of wax models became popular with visitors seeking an unusual afternoon’s entertainment. The public were invited to learn about the body’s internal structure, its reproductive system and its vulnerability to disease–especially the sexually transmitted kind–through displays that combined serious science with more than a touch of prurience and horror.

At a time when scandal surrounded the practice of dissection, the medical establishment gave these collections of human surrogates a cautious welcome; yet only a few decades later they fell into disrepute, some even facing prosecution for obscenity. This talk will trace the trajectory of these museums in a highly illustrated lecture featuring many of the historical artifacts featured in the show.

To find out more about the exhibition ‘Exquisite Bodies,’ click here and here.

Kate Forde is Curator of Temporary Exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection, London. She is interested in the role of museums in the shaping of cultural memory and in the display of fine art within science-based institutions. Her current research is taking her from the great dust-heaps of Victorian London to Staten Island’s landfill Fresh Kills for an exhibition with the working title ‘Dirt’. You can see a preview of tonight's lecture by clicking here.

You can find out more about this presentation here; As mentioned above, you can find out more about the exhibition here, here and here and see a preview of the lecture here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Obs
ervatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Our newest Observatory exhibition "Paradiso Contrapasso"--curated by my boyfriend GF Newland along with our good friends Lord Whimsy and Susan Crawford of Plankton Art Co-- will be opening its doors this Thursday with a free reception running from 8 PM till the wine runs out.

Full details follow; very much hope to see you there!

Paradiso Contrapasso: An exhibition curated by Observatory’s G.F. Newland with Lord Whimsy and Susan Crawford of Plankton Art Co.
OPENING RECEPTION: October 14th, 8:00 PM
ON VIEW: October 14th - November 28th, 2010
HOURS: Thursdays & Fridays 3-6; Saturdays & Sundays 12-6

To compliment the recent opening of Paradise, a year long event at Proteus Gowanus, Observatory explores the theme: Paradiso Contrapasso. In Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso Contrapasso distinguishes each sinner by making his or her punishment uniquely appropriate to the committed sin, so that every soul inhabits a Hell all its own.

For example, consider the story of Paolo and Francesca:
An unlikely marriage is proposed between the beautiful Francesca and the rich, but ugly Gianciotto. Paolo, the handsome brother of Gianciotto seduces the young bride and they become lovers. When Gianciotto discovers their indiscretion, he murders them both. In Hell, Paolo and Francesca are fused together in an eternal embrace, wishing only to be separated.

As Dante journeys through Purgatorio and Paradisio, he does not revisit this technique of contrapasso. For our event, however, Observatory encourages artists to consider divine comedic retribution in all of its possible representations, and from sources such as the Bible and religious and esoteric cosmologies, the ethical philosophies of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Symbolist poetry, the works of Roald Dahl, the Wizard of Oz, Cautionary Tales, Folklore and Fairy Stories, the Twilight Zone, Modern Dystopias, etc. The emphasis is on “Divine” and “Comedy”, and on our superstitious fear of getting what we wish for!

ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Martin Bland
Erich Carlle
Dennis Corrigan
Matthew Cox
Lord Whimsy / Allen Crawford
John Dilworth
Arlene Ducao
Joanna Ebenstein
Crista Grauer
Andrew Keating
Ilias Koen
Luis Locarno
Heather Masciandaro
Richard Meyer
GF Newland
Alison Overton
Herbert Pfostl
Rebecca Posner
James Prochnik
Rachel Rabhan
R. Sikoryak
Melissa Stern
Alison Termine
Friese Undine

To find out more, click here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: "Holiday in Hell," Denis Corrigan, Oil on Canvas

All images from Joseph Handler's Le Livre de Sante (Monte Carlo: Andre Sauret, 1967)
volume 6: "La bouche et les dents. Le systeme digestif. Les reins" and found on the wonderful blog Journey Around my Skull. You can visit the full post--with additional images--by clicking here.

Images top to bottom:

1. Dents temporaires et germes des dents permanentes, illus. Pasqualini
2. Les levres, illus. Aslan
3. Constitution du rein, illus. W. Hess

I just found out about an excellent looking exhibition now on in Dunedin, New Zealand; the exhibition is called "Still Life: The Art of Anatomy," and it frames a variety of historical and contemporary anatomical teaching tools held in public and private hands--including models and illustrations--as artworks in a fine art setting.

Images of the exhibition above and full details below; if you are based in New Zealand, be sure to check this out!

Still Life: The Art of Anatomy
Saturday, 10 July 2010 - 12 September 2010
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Dunedin, New Zealand

Noted Dunedin based filmmaker and medical doctor Paul Trotman, has worked closely with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in researching Dunedin's rich collections towards the realization of Still Life: The Art of Anatomy. This exhibition brings together an array of historical and contemporary items, such as Dr John Halliday Scott's elegant anatomical drawings and old master prints, through to porcelain and wax casts of aspects of the body and the latest interactive computer generated 3D anatomical models. Still Life provides a stunning insight into this complex subject and also reveals the important lineage that science and art shares through the analysis, distillation and depiction of the human form.

You can find out more by clicking here or here.

All of these wonderful circus images are found in the Le Cirque Flickr set of DoubleM2; you can see the entire wonderful set by clicking here.

Via one of my new favorite websites, Turn of the Century.

Next Sunday at 4:30 PM as part of the Coney Island Museum's "Ask the Experts" Series, Evan Michelson--co-proprietor of Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library Scholar in Residence--will be giving a reprise of her popular "Culture of Curiosity" lecture, which some of you might have seen at Observatory last November.

If you missed it the first time, or were made curious enough [sic] about the topic to want to know more, do yourself the favor of heading down to Coney to hear Evan wax poetic [sic] in a new and expanded discussion of "the continuing appeal of curated chaos in the home."

Full details follow; very much hope to see you there!

"The Culture of Curiosity"
An illustrated lecture by Evan Michelson of Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Date: Sunday, August 15
Time: 4:30 PM
Admission: $5
Location: The Coney Island Museum

From humble parlor to Princely treasury, the Culture of Curiosity has endured for hundreds of years. In equal parts uncanny obsession, camp statement, melancholy musing, frivolous commentary and timeless metaphor, ultimately it's all about mystery.

Come and join Evan Michelson (Morbid Anatomy Scholar in Residence) in an exploration of the continuing appeal of curated chaos in the home.

Evan Michelson is an inveterate collector and museum aficionado. She has spent a lifetime obsessing over specimens, lurking in crypts, touring necropoli and gathering information on all things fading from the collective memory.

For about two decades Evan was in and out of various aggressively confrontational/decadent bands. She is currently co-owner of Obscura Antiques and Oddities, and Scholar-in-Residence at the Morbid Anatomy Library. She lives in Victorian excess with her husband, a few pets, and many esoteric and uncanny objects.

You can find out more about the event by clicking here. Hope to see you there!

The above photo is a Wax Department Store Mannequin from the Early 20th Century from Evan Michelson's incredible home collection, as seen in my recent exhibition The Secret Museum. You can find more images of her collection here.

...He had, in Castra Regis, a large collection of curious and interesting things formed in the past by his forebears, of similar tastes to his own. There were all sorts of strange anthropological specimens, both old and new, which had been collected through various travels in strange places: ancient Egyptian relics from tombs and mummies; curios from Australia, New Zealand, and the South Seas; idols and images--from Tartar ikons to ancient Egyptian, Persian, and Indian objects of worship; objects of death and torture of American Indians; and, above all, a vast collection of lethal weapons of every kind and from every place--Chinese "high pinders," double knives, Afghan double-edged scimitars made to cut a body in two, heavy knives from all the Eastern countries, ghost daggers from Thibet, the terrible kukri of the Ghourka and other hill tribes of India, assassins' weapons from Italy and Spain, even the knife which was formerly carried by the slave-drivers of the Mississippi region. Death and pain of every kind were fully represented in that gruesome collection.

That it had a fascination for Oolanga goes without saying. He was never tired of visiting the museum in the tower, and spent endless hours in inspecting the exhibits, till he was thoroughly familiar with every detail of all of them. He asked permission to clean and polish and sharpen them--a favour which was readily granted. In addition to the above objects, there were many things of a kind to awaken human fear. Stuffed serpents of the most objectionable and horrid kind; giant insects from the tropics, fearsome in every detail; fishes and crustaceans covered with weird spikes; dried octopuses of great size. Other things, too, there were, not less deadly though seemingly innocuous--dried fungi, traps intended for birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles, and insects; machines which could produce pain of any kind and degree, and the only mercy of which was the power of producing speedy death....

This quotation is drawn from chapter 11--entitled "Mesmer's Chest"--of Bram Stoker's 1911 publication Lair of the White Worm which went on to inspire Ken Russell's suitably over-the-top film of the same name.

You can read this book in its entirety by clicking here. You can purchase a print copy by clicking here. You can find out more about the film by clicking here. You can also come visit my copy of Lair of the White Worm at the Morbid Anatomy Library, where it resides in the "gothic" section.

The image you see above is sourced from the exhibition catalog Darwin: Art and the Search for Origins which was published to accompany an exhibition held last year at the Frankfurt museum Schirn. The photo is captioned: "View into the Zoological and Anthropological section of Gabriel von Max's 'Scientific Collection,' circa 1892." To check out (and purchase) the catalog for the exhibition (highly HIGHLY recommended!) click here. To watch musician/performance artist Momus (!!!) giving a tour of the exhibition--including the installation of the von Max collection--click here. For a more traditional walk through the exhibition, click here.

Special thanks to Christine Edmonson of the Cleveland Museum of Art for turning me onto this wonderful book and exhibition.

He shoots in concentration camps, sterile medical laboratories, crumbling archives, curious private collections. He notes that about 90% of his work is done in the Catholic world, places “richly fixated on the body of Mary, the body of Christ, the bodies of the martyrs” and with a “history of sensually violent and death-riddled art.” It’s a tradition that doesn’t exist in North America, and his book serves as a reminder of “everything we left; everything that made us, and somehow drove us to undo that and make ourselves over.--"Jack Burman: Book of the Dead," The Canadian National Post

Canadian photographer Jack Burman's new book--titled, simply, The Dead--is a breathtaking book. Gorgeously produced and sober, this quiet and lovely book is filled with Burman's large-scale photographs exploring the topic of death via a meditative documentation of a variety of human remains. Many of the 52 images which make up this book picture artifacts--from specimens to mummies to medical preparations--that will be familiar to aficionados of medical museums and ossuaries, but the quiet restraint and rich detail Burman achieves in his classically composed images elevate the book above the usual fare.

The book is published by The Magenta Foundation; you can find out more about it--and purchase the book in one of its three editions--by clicking here. You can also come pay the book a visit in the Morbid Anatomy Library where my copy resides atop the New Arrivals pile. You can read more about the book in the recent Canadian National Post article quoted above by clicking here.

This anatomical wax model shows the internal organs in a female torso and head, including the lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys and intestines. Complete with the veins and arteries, the heart is entirely removable. The figure was made by Francesco Calenzuoli (1796-1821), an Italian model maker renowned for his attention to detail. Wax models were used for teaching anatomy to medical students because they made it possible to pick out and emphasise specific features of the body, making their structure and function easier to understand. This made them especially useful at a time when few bodies were available for dissection. The model was donated by the Department of Human Anatomy at the University of Oxford.

Object number: 1988-249

Yet more (recent posts here: 1, 2, 3) riches from the London Science Museum's magnificently inexhaustable Brought to Life web exhibit. You can see much, much more by clicking here. Also, please click on images to see them in their full large-scale glory.

This Thursday August 5th at Observatory, Lord Whimsy, as part of his lecture "Nature as Miniaturist: An Illustrated Survey of the Bogs of Southern New Jersey" will be displaying the epic carnivorous plant-filled container bog seen above. Said bog is also, as it turns out, for sale; you can even take it home with you after Thursday's event if so inclined!

Full info follows, as found on Lord Whimsy's website; if you are interested, you can email Whimsy at email [at] lordwhimsy.com.

Mr. Bill Smith was kind enough to lend one of his container bogs (pictured above) for my Observatory talk this Thursday night in Brooklyn. He would like to inform you folks out in the netiverse that he is offering this three year-old bog garden for sale at the very reasonable price of $200--an excellent bargain, since purchasing these mature plants separately would cost considerably more.

The container is hollow resin, and can be left outside year-round without worry of cracking. The plants in the bog include: Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea 'Jersey Girl'), Yellow Trumpet Pitcher (S. flava), Catesby's S. purpurea x S. flava hybrid pitcher plant (S. x Catesbei), Grass Pink Orchid (Calopogon tuberosus), 'Hamilton' dwarf cranberry, Spade leafed sundew (Drosera intermedia), and Thread leafed sundew (D. filiformis). A marvelous, mature grouping of classic North American bog plants, suitable for rooftop gardens and decks. No fertilizer necessary. Very low maintenance: just keep in full sun with regular waterings. Can be left outside year-round. All plants are cold hardy in zone 6b.

Interested parties may contact me (email [at] lordwhimsy.com) and claim their purchase after my lecture on Thursday evening.

Similar container bogs of all sizes can be had at Rarefind Nursery.

You can find out more about Lord Whimsy's presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Augustine included curiositas in his catalog of vices, identifying it as one of the three forms of lust (concupiscentia) that are the beginning of all sin (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and ambition of the world). The overly curious mind exhibits a “lust to find out and know,” not for any practical purpose but merely for the sake of knowing. Thanks to the “disease of curiosity” people go to watch freaks in circuses and charlatans in the piazzas. Augustine saw no essential difference between such perverse entertainments and the “empty longing and curiosity [that is] dignified by the names of learning and science.”

I just came across a nice meditation on the history of the debate of curiosity as value or vice on the website of Author William Eamon, author of Science and the Secrets of Nature and The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, Medicine, and Alchemy in Renaissance Italy:

The Disease Called Curiosity
Nowadays we think of curiosity as an emotion necessary for the advancement of knowledge, indeed as the well-spring of scientific discovery. It was not always so.

Saint Augustine, in the fourth century, stated the traditional medieval view of curiosity, and it wasn’t favorable. In the Confessions, the Bishop of Hippo made inquisitiveness in general the subject of a vicious polemic, thereby setting the tone for the debate over intellectual curiosity for centuries. Augustine included curiositas in his catalog of vices, identifying it as one of the three forms of lust (concupiscentia) that are the beginning of all sin (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and ambition of the world). The overly curious mind exhibits a “lust to find out and know,” not for any practical purpose but merely for the sake of knowing. Thanks to the “disease of curiosity” people go to watch freaks in circuses and charlatans in the piazzas. Augustine saw no essential difference between such perverse entertainments and the “empty longing and curiosity [that is] dignified by the names of learning and science.”

No difference between gawking at freaks in a sideshow and making investigations in natural philosophy? That’s what the saint said: “From the same motive,” Augustine wrote, “men proceed to investigate the workings of nature, which is beyond our ken—things which it does no good to know and which men only want to know for the sake of knowing.” Augustine’s severe judgment of intellectual curiosity, linking it with the sin of pride, the black arts, and the Fall, became conventional in medieval thought. In the Renaissance, it gave rise to such memorable characters as Doctor Faustus, who bartered his soul to the devil to satisfy his insatiable curiosity and quest for power.

Yet gawking curiosity was the perpetuum mobile of Renaissance science. Early modern curiosity was insatiable, never content with a single experience or object. Whereas Augustine linked curiosity to sensual lust and human depravity, Renaissance natural philosophers saw it as being driven by wonder and the engine of discovery...

...Venice’s maritime empire and its rich craft tradition provided plentiful fuel for wonder and curiosity. The continual contact with exotic commodities, whether herbs from the New World, mechanical toys from Persia, or fake dragons and basilisks, fueled Renaissance curiosity. All that evoked curiosity and wonder became prized objects for collectors, who displayed rare and exotic natural and artifical objects in curiosity cabinets, like peacocks proudly displaying their colorful feathers—indeed, peacock feather, too, were prized objects for collectors.

Pharmacies displayed the curiosities of Renaissance culture. The cabinet of pharmacist Francesco Calzolari at Verona, pictured here, displayed dried herbs, minerals, preserved animals, birds and snakes, including a supposed unicorn horn.

Such objects would become the “curious” things of early modern science. Saint Paul’s admonition, Noli alta sapere, “Do not seek to know high things,” gave way in the Renaissance to Horace’s more hopeful Sapere aude, “Dare to know.”

The transformation of curiosity in the Renaissance was a precondition of modernity. Without curiosity, there can be no scientific discovery, and without discovery, there can be no new knowledge.

You can read this piece in its entirety--and find out more about William Eamon and his work-- by clicking here.

Image caption: Pharmacies displayed the curiosities of Renaissance culture. The cabinet of pharmacist Francesco Calzolari at Verona, pictured here, displayed dried herbs, minerals, preserved animals, birds and snakes, including a supposed unicorn horn.

They’re all around us…in our homes, in our places of work, in our backyards, and in the air…what are we talking about? Insects. On this week's Cityscape, we're exploring the world of bugs. We'll talk with the author of a new book called Insectopedia, visit a Manhattan eatery that serves grasshoppers (and eat them too), talk with a Brooklyn artist who dabbles in insect photography and meet a pair of professional "insect-pinners" in SoHo.

The recent Cityscapes radio show "Bugging Out" plumbs the fascinating world of insects, as described above; one segment--that about the "Brooklyn artist who dabbles in insect photography"--features an interview with me about my insect photographs as shown in the recent Entomologia exhibition at Observatory.

You can give the show--which is interesting from start to finish!-- a listen by clicking here. You can find out more by clicking here. All images are mine, from Observatory's recent Entomologia exhibition; you can find out more about the show, which was brilliantly curated by Michelle Enemark, by clicking here. More about the book Insectopedia by clicking here.

Please note: The photographs you see above from the Entomologia exhibition are still available for sale; if interested, please contact me.