Amazing Auction Alert: "Out of the Ordinary" Auction, September 5th, Christie's Auction House, South Kensington, London

All of these exquisitely idiosyncratic objects--and many, many more!--will be included in the upcoming "Out of the Ordinary" auction at Christie's South Kensington, London on September 5th.

You can find out more--and see the complete listings!--by clicking here. Thanksso much  to Carol Holzner and Pam Grossman for bringing this amazing sale--which I will do my best to attend!--to my attention.

 

Lots, top to bottom:

1. Lot 16: A RARE NORTH ITALIAN TAXIDERMY OSTRICH , BY JOSEPH VULPINUS, DATED 1785; £8,000 - £12,000($12,264 - $18,396)
2. Lot 13:  A WAXWORK ANATOMICAL MALE TORSO; EARLY 20TH CENTURY; £800 - £1,200($1,226 - $1,840)
3. Lot 12: A TAXIDERMY PEACOCK PAVO CRISTATUS; 20TH CENTURY; £1,000 - £1,500($1,533 - $2,300)
4. Lot 4: A PAIR OF GERMAN SCAGLIOLA DIDACTIC PANELS ; MID-19TH CENTURY, BY FRANZ JOSEF STEGER & CARL ERNST BOCK; £8,000 - £12,000($12,264 - $18,396)
5. Lot 3: THREE PAINT AND INK HEIGHTENED PHOTOGRAPHS; THE PHOTOGRAPHS LATE 19TH EARLY 20TH CENTURY, LATER RE-INTERPRETED BY MARCOS RAYA, 2013; £3,000 - £4,000($4,599 - $6,132)
6. Lot 11: A GROUP OF THREE PAINTED CANVAS MASONIC PANELS; EARLY 20TH CENTURY; £1,000 - £1,500($1,533 - $2,300)
7. Lot 6: A GROUP OF ELEVEN VICTORIAN HAIR-WORK MOURNING ART PICTURES; LATE 19TH EARLY 20TH CENTURY; £1,000 - £1,500($1,533 - $2,300)

"The Wellcome at 75," Financial Times Magazine, Article and Slide Shows

...you can’t grasp the Wellcome collection unless you can see the poetry in it. But until quite recently, the irrepressible curiosities and juxtapositions that make the collection captivating were regarded as an irrelevance, an embarrassment and a confounded nuisance to the people charged with putting it in order. When Henry Wellcome displayed his collection for the first time, he decreed that the museum should be “strictly professional and scientific in character”. His collection has resisted successfully ever since...

From the article "The Wellcome at 75" by Marek Kohn in the Financial Times magazine. You can read the full article--from which the above was excerpted--by clicking here. You can view the complete slideshows--from which the above images are drawn--by clicking here and here. Click on images to see much larger images.

Thanks to the afore mentioned Ross Macfarlane for bringing this article to my attention!

Image captions top to bottom:

1. Models of human skulls in ivory, silver and wood
2. A pair of phrenological busts, 1821
3. Tattoos. Wellcome acquired 300 tattoos collected by a Paris surgeon who was active in the late 19th century. They are kept in boxes for fear that they were treated with toxic chemicals
   
4. Ivory anatomical figures, 17th-18th century
5. Roman votives. Romans would offer models of afflicted body parts to a god to beg or give thanks for cures. The model on the left is also Roman but was not one of these votive offerings. It came from Pompeii, where it may have adorned a shop front
6. Wax model of decomposing body in coffin, Italian, late 1700s
7. Plaster death mask of Victorian murderer James Bloomfield Rush
8. Stuffed coiled snake, 1897
9. Chinese porcelain fruit containing couple in sexual foreplay
   

"Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles," Through February 2011

Thanks so much to my friend Megan for letting me know about the super exciting looking exhibition that will be on view at Versailles Palace in France through February of next year.

The show--entitled "Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles"--will tell the story of scientific inquiry, rational amusement, and natural and artificial curiosities at the grand royal court of Versailles. To illustrate this worthy topic, the exhibition will gather and display--for the first time ever--a variety of artifacts that once comprised part of the monolithic "royal collection" and are now--post French Revolution and disciplinary divides--housed in a variety of anatomical, anthropological, natural historical, and art museums around France.

The artifacts will reveal "a new, unexpected face of Versailles as a place of scientific inquiry in its most various forms," trace the stories of the relationship between natural philosophers and the royal court, and bring "together works and instruments from the old royal collections, spectacular achievements of beauty and intelligence, for the first time."

Good stuff!

Here is the full description from the website:

[Science and Curiosities at the Court of Versailles] reveals a new, unexpected face of Versailles as a place of scientific inquiry in its most various forms: the Hall of Mirrors electricity experiment, Marley Machine on the banks of the Seine, burning mirror solar power demonstration, etc. It brings together works and instruments from the old royal collections, spectacular achievements of beauty and intelligence, for the first time.

Versailles is the place where control over science was exercised. At the urging of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's "prime minister", the royal authority became aware of the benefits of scientific research. In 1666 Colbert founded the Academy of Science, establishing a new contract between the government and scientists. Many "natural philosophers", as they were known at the time, including some of the most famous, assiduously frequented the Court as physicians, army engineers, tutors, etc. The physicists Benjamin Franklin and Abbot Nollet compared their theories in front of the king and the encyclopaedists Diderot and D’Alembert met in the office of Dr. Quesnay, physician to Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's favourite. Some courtiers were real experts.

The Château de Versailles offered many research resources. Anatomists and zoologists could study the menagerie's ostriches, pelicans, rhinoceroses and other rare animals, botanists and agronomists the plants on the grounds of the Trianon and "hippiatrists", the forerunners to veterinarians, the horses in the Grand Stables.

Educators developed new teaching methods using cutting-edge tools for the royal children and the kings' personal practice. While Louis XIV considered himself a protector of the arts and sciences without practicing them, his successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, became true connoisseurs. A presentation to the king or demonstration before the Court was the highest honour, equivalent to winning a Nobel Prize. Many people know about the first hot-air balloon flight, but numerous other events have fallen into oblivion, such as the burning mirror demonstration in front of Louis XIV or the electricity experiment in the Hall of Mirrors under his successor's reign.

You can find out more on the exhibition website--which will be on view until February of next year--by clicking here. You can see the Tympanum Player Automaton in full automaton action by pressing play on the Youtube viewer above.

If anyone makes it to this exhibition, I would love to see images/hear a report!

Top two images are installation views of the exhibition from the Corbis Images Blog. The rest of the images from the exhibition website and are captioned, top to bottom:

• The Tympanum Player Automaton; Peter Kintzing (1745-1816) and David Roentgen (1743-1807)
• Rhinoceros gifted in 1769 to King Louis XV by the French governor of Chandernagore
• Waxen Indian head from the Cabinet of the Marquis de Sérent; originally on display in a window of the Marquis de Sérent's ethnographical cabinet in Rue des Réservoirs at Versailles acquired for the princes' education.
• 18th C Artwork depicting Étienne de Montgolfier's aerostatic experiment at Versailles
• Watercolour drawing by Philippe-Etienne Lafosse (1738-1820), intended for the study of Farriery, or the art of treating the ailments of horses

Via my wonderful friend Megan Fitzpatrick who found it via Jezebel.

"Oddities," Obscura Antiques and Oddities, Discovery Channel, Premiering Next Thursday at 9:30 on Discovery Channel

Wow. Its for real.

"Oddities," the new reality TV show (that's right, REALITY TV SHOW) based on Morbid Anatomy's favorite shop Obscura Antiques and Oddities in New York City's East Village. Seen above, in moving images and sound, in the just-released trailer. The show features shop proprietors and good friends Evan Michelson (aka Morbid Anatomy Library Scholar in Residence) and Mike Zohn, who recently dignified us with a wonderful lecture on Automata at Observatory.

Wow. Wow! Somehow I did not expect to see so many familiar faces.

"Oddities" premieres Nov. 4 at 9:30 p.m. on Discovery Channel; after the launch, it will air Thursdays at 8 PM. You can find out more about Obscura Antiques and Oddities by clicking here; you can see a recent MA Post on the story by clicking here. For more on the show--including a link to a story in the New York Post--see this recent post.

"Oddities," Obscura Antiques and Oddities, Discovery Channel

Yes, the rumors, bizarre as they are, are true. Obscura Antiques and Oddities--my absolute favorite store in the world, see images above--is now the base, inspiration, location, and cast-provider for "Oddities," a new reality TV show (sic) that will be shown on The Discovery Channel starting next Thursday. The show stars not only friends and friends-of-the-blog Evan Michelson (Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence) and Mike Zohn--the proprietors or the inimitable Obscura Antiques--but also an array of other fascinating friends and collectors who travel in their circle.

With this cast, setting, and array of possible situations, "Oddities" will doubtless make unusually compelling reality television. I, for one--and please note, I generally HATE reality TV!--can't wait to see it!

More about the show--which premieres next Thursday, November 4th--from today's New York Post (which, although it seems to miss the point somewhat, provides a good description of the action):

Manhattan's own Obscura Antiques & Oddities and its owners, Mike Zohn and Evan Michelson, are the focus of a new series, "Oddities," premiering Nov. 4 at 9:30 p.m. on Discovery Channel. It'll air Thursdays at 9 p.m. thereafter.

The shop, located at 280 East 10th (between 1st Avenue and Avenue A) has a cornucopia of just-plain-weird stuff, like human gallstones, late 19th century poison bottles and bizarre medical instruments. And Zohn and Michelson seem just as colorful (he's a "creative taxidermy" winner; she's into Victorian mourning jewelry and was in a "Goth fetish band," whatever that is).

In the first episode, Mike finds a mummified cat in the private collection of "an eccentric artist" (ya think?) but worries it might be putrefying. Yeeeccchh. He also informs a customer, who thought he had a collection of musket balls, that they're actually something else entirely. I won't spoil it for you.

The second episode finds Evan encountering a puppeteer who's looking for a prosthetic limb, and a customer who has what appears to be a dead body in the trunk of his car.

Good times.

The show premieres Nov. 4 at 9:30 p.m. on Discovery Channel; after the launch, it will air Thursdays at 9 PM. You can find out more about Obscura Antiques and Oddities by clicking here; you can see a recent MA Post on the story by clicking here.

Thanks to Lord Whimsy for alerting me to the official announcement.

"Genius or Grotesquery? The Arrestingly Strange World of Walter Potter," The Museum of Everything, Exhibition # 3

The wild and eerie Victorian world of Walter Potter, where baby rabbits go to school and weep over their blotted copybooks, and where Bullingdon Club-style squirrels puff on cigars as toads play leapfrog and rat police raid a drinking den, is being reassembled in London, seven years after his creatures were sold and scattered across the world.

The displays are being assembled at the reopened Museum of Everything, a pop-up museum in a former Victorian dairy, and later recording studio, in Primrose Hill, London...

Whilst in London last week, I had the very good fortune to attend a preview of The Museum of Everything's "Exhibition #3," a carnivalesque spree exploring all things collectory, side-show, circus, grotto, and taxidermological. One of the exhibitions more impressive achievements--and the reason I was there in the first place--was the attempt to re-stage Victorian anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter's Victorian museum of curiosities, a noble feat achieved by borrowing an assortment of Potter's charming pieces from the assortment of lucky private collectors--including Damien Hirst, Sir Peter Blake, and Pat Morris--who acquired them after the museum was controversially divided at auction in 2003.

Today's Guardian has run what I hope will be only the first of many ecstatic pieces on this wonderful exhibition, and on the Potter portion in particular, entitled "Genius or grotesquery? The arrestingly strange world of Walter Potter."

My friend Pat Morris--who spoke on Walter Potter at our recent Congress for Curious People-- loaned several of his own Potter pieces to the exhibition, most notably "The Death of Cock Robin, a truly epic tableaux depicting the funeral procession of the fabled Cock Robin as recounted in the well-known Englist nursery rhyme "Who Killed Cock Robin." This spectacular piece, as the Guardian describes, includes "more than 100 birds including a weeping robin widow and an owl gravedigger who has tumbled some tiny bones out of the soil while preparing space for the dead robin." For a visual (but please note: this image simply does not do the piece justice!), see third image down.

Besides being a collector of great proportion, Mr. Morris is also the author of the only extant book on Mr. Potter and his work, the lavishly illustrated and encyclopedic Walter Potter and His Museum of Curious Taxidermy, which you can buy in hardback or paperback by clicking here or here, respectively. You can also find out more about Potter, his work and his history by visiting the Ravishing Beast website by clicking here. You can read the full Genius or grotesquery?" article on the Guardian website by clicking here. To find out more about this exhibition--which will be on at least till Christmas--and the very curious Museum of Everything, click here.

Thanks to friend, friend-of-the-blog, and many time Observatory lecturer John Troyer for alerting me to this article!

The Dangers and Pleasures of Curiosity, from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance

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.

"The Congress for Curious People," Epic 2-Day Symposium Begins Tomorrow!!!

Click on image or here to download full-sized broadside as seen above. Prints up to 11 X 17.

Morbid Anatomy and Observatory are pleased to present, in conjunction with the Coney Island Museum, "The Congress for Curious People!"

Tomorrow, Saturday April 17th, our 2-day open-to-the public conference will begin at 11:00 AM at the Coney Island Museum. The conference will examine, in a series of thematic panel sessions, curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. Participants will include artist/collector Joe Coleman, the Freakatorium's Johnny Fox, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy Melissa Milgrom, curator of the incomparable Dream Anatomy Mike Sappol, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America Andrea Stulman Dennett and Obscura Antiques and Oddities' Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn. See below for full details and schedule.

Also on view will be the "Collectors Cabinet"on view for the entirety of the event, showcasing astounding objects held in private collections, and, at partner space Observatory, "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts.

Full details follow: Hope very, very much to see you there!!!

CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE 2-DAY SYMPOSIUM

Date: Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th
Location: Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn ADMISSION: $25 for full weekend admission
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Observatory with Coney Island USA
The Congress for Curious People is a 2-day symposium exploring education and spectacle, collectors of curiosities, historical fairground displays and more, in conjunction with The Coney Island Museum. The symposium will feature panels of humanities scholars discussing with the audience the intricacies of collecting, the history of ethnographic display, the interface of spectacle and education, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Also on view in the museum will be "The Collector's Cabinet," an installation of astounding artifacts held in private collections. In conjunction with the events at the Coney Island Museum, Observatory's Gallery space will host "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world.

The Congress for Curious People will serve as an academic counterpoint to Coney Island's Congress of Curious Peoples, which Coney Island USA has convened since 2007 at Sideshows by the Seashore. In the past, the Congress has included performances by artists like Joe Coleman and Harley Newman, feats of strength, and world-record breaking attempts, among others. You can find out more about the Congress of Curious Peoples at www.coneyisland.com/congress.shtml.

Saturday, April 17th 11 AM-12:30 PM – Education and Spectacle in 19th and 20th Century Amusements, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Eva Åhrén, author of Death, Modernity, and the Body : Sweden 1870-1940
Andrea Stulman Dennett, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
Amy Herzog, author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Kathy Maher, Executive Director of the Barnum Museum
Moderated by Betsy Bradley, New York Public Library

LUNCH 2-3:30 PM– Cabinets of Curiosity: Collecting Curiosities in the 21st Century, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Joe Coleman, collector and artist
Johnny Fox, collector, performer, founder of The Freakatorium
Evan Michelson, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Mike Zohn, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Moderated by Aaron Beebe, Director of the Coney Island Museum

4-5:30 PM – Freaks and Monsters: The Politics of Bodily Display, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Mike Chemers, author of Staging Stigma: A Critical History of the American Freak Show
Nadja Durbach, author of Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Michael Sappol, Historian of the National Library of Medicine and author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America
Moderated by Jennifer Miller, Bearded Lady and founder of Circus Amok

6-8 PM Drinks and light fare

Sunday, April 18th 12-2 PM – A History of Cultural Display in World’s Fairs and Sideshows, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Lucian Gomoll, University of California at Santa Cruz
Alison Griffiths, author of Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn of the Century Visual Culture
Barbara Mathé, Archivist, American Museum of Natural History
Moderated by Aaron Glass, author of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural Biography and In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting

2 PM – Closing remarks

RELATED EXHIBITIONS

The Secret Museum
An exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts, by Joanna Ebenstein, co-founder of Observatory and creator of Morbid Anatomy.
Location: Observatory
Opening Party: Saturday, April 10, 7-10; on view On view from April 10th-May 16th, 3-6 Thursday and Friday, 12-6 Saturday and Sunday
Admission: Free

The Collectors Cabinet
An exhibition which will showcase astounding objects held in private collections, including artifacts featured in Joanna Ebenstein's Private Cabinet photo series of 2009. Featured cabinetists include Curious Expeditions and Observatory's Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, and Morbid Anatomy and Observatory's Joanna Ebenstein.
LOCATION: * Coney Island Museum, Brooklyn

Image: "Femme à Barbe, Musée Orfila.Courtesy of Paris Descartes University.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples, and to get directions, click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside.

Congress for Curious People: Lectures Begin Tomorrow Night at the Coney Island Museum!

Click on image or here to download full-sized broadside as seen above. Prints up to 11 X 17.

The "Congress for Curious People"--as detailed in this recent post--will launch tomorrow with Evan Michelson's illustrated meditation on "The Saddest Object in the World" and continue through the week with nightly lectures on topics ranging from taxidermy to automata to the first American museum. On the following Saturday and Sunday, we will be hosting an epic 2-day symposium examining the collecting of curiosities, the history of ethnographic display and the interface of spectacle and education in 19th and 2oth Century amusements, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Full details for all events follow.

Important Note: All events will be co-presented by Observatory and Morbid Anatomy but will take place at The Coney Island Museum rather than Observatory. Half-price drinks till 7 will help make it worth-your-while for a little extra commute, as will the amazing lectures and symposium, not to mention the ambiance of the museum as lecture space. I will be in attendance at every lecture; very much hope to see you there!

LECTURE WEEK AT THE CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE



The Saddest Object in the World
An Illustrated Meditation by Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Date: Monday, April 12th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
“The Saddest Object in the World” is a meditation on one particular artifact; an exercise in Proustian involuntary memory, aesthetic critique, and philosophical bargaining.

Sometimes objects have consequences.

Evan Michelson is an antiques dealer, lecturer, accumulator and aesthete; she tirelessly indulges a lifelong pursuit of all things obscure and melancholy. She currently lives in another place and time.



A Rogue's Approach to Stuffing It: Taxidermy in Contemporary Pop, Art and Sub-Cultures
Robert Marbury of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists
Date: Tuesday, April 13th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
ave you seen a rise in taxidermy in the world around you? What could be causing this resurgence? A Rogue’s Approach to Taxidermy will identify prominent practitioners of natural history art; discuss popular trends in preservation, presentation and representation; and delve into the sub-culture of artistic taxidermy. Robert will also discuss the highs and lows of running a taxidermy art group, and offer suggestions on which emails to return and who to not let into your house.

Robert Marbury received his BA in Anthropology from Connecticut College and a post-Bac from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He is the co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. Robert is currently curating a Rogue Taxidermy show which will run from May 7th to May 30th at La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles. He lives and works in Brooklyn.




A Brief History of Automata
An Illustrated Lecture and Demonstration by Mike Zohn, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Date: Wednesday, April 14th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
In this illustrated lecture, Obscura Antique and Oddities‘ Mike Zohn will demonstrate his 19th Century taxidermy automata, as featured in last year’s Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest. He will explain its curious mechanisms, and, in an illustrated lecture, will introduce us to the history of these fascinating uncanny machines, tracing their trajectory from tools of religious coercion to prince’s plaything to Disney’s imagineering experiments.
Mike Zohn is co-proprietor of Obscura Antique and Oddities. He fixes automata in his spare time.



A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste
An Illustrated Presentation By Dr. Pat Morris, Royal Holloway, University of London
Date: Thursday, April 15th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Should taxidermy be viewed as art, science, or bad taste? And why is it so interesting? Dr. Pat Morris’ illustrated lecture “A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste” will explore these topics and more. His talk will range over the history of stuffed animals, considering how a small-time taxidermist business operated in the 19th century and exploring the many diverse and amusing uses of taxidermy and the taxidermist’s products ranging from major museum exhibits to stuffed pets, hunting trophies, animal furniture, kitten weddings (see above, Walter Potter, circa 1890s), frogs eating spaghetti and squirrels playing cards. He will discuss in detail the work of anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter and his eponymous “Museum of Curiosities,” as detailed in his own lavishly illustrated book on that topic, which will be available for sale at the lecture.

Dr. Pat Morris is a retired staff member of Royal Holloway College (University of London), where he taught biology undergraduates and supervised research on mammal ecology. In that capacity he has published many books and scientific papers and featured regularly in radio and TV broadcasts. The history of taxidermy has been a lifelong hobby interest and he has published academic papers and several books on the subject. With his wife Mary he has travelled widely, including most of Europe and the USA, seeking interesting taxidermy specimens and stories. They live in England where their house is home to the largest collection and archive of historical taxidermy in Britain.


















Charles Wilson Peale and the Birth of the American Museum
An Illustrated Presentation by Samuel Strong Dunlap, PhD, Descendant of Charles Wilson Peale
Date: Friday, April 16th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Long time historian and editor of the Peale Family Papers Dr. Lillian B. Miller (now deceased) described Charles Willson Peale as a true renaissance man. Peale is perhaps best remembered today as the founder of America’s first cabinet-of-curiosity like museum–the Philadelphia Museum (later the Peale Museum)–which housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens and can be viewed in the image above. Famously, Peale’s museum also pioneered the habitat group–or natural history diorama–an art form memorably perfected by such museums as the American Museum of Natural History and Chicago’s Field Museum in the early 20th Century.

In this illustrated lecture, we will learn about Peale the museologist, and examine how his museological work continuously overlap with his inventive, artistic, scientific, literary and exploratory interests. Peale was a friend or acquaintance with most of the military, scientific, diplomatic and foreign individuals who played significant roles in our revolutionary war and the early growth of our democracy.

CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE 2-DAY SYMPOSIUM

Date: Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th
Location: Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn ADMISSION: $25 for full weekend admission
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Observatory with Coney Island USA
The Congress for Curious People is a 2-day symposium exploring education and spectacle, collectors of curiosities, historical fairground displays and more, in conjunction with The Coney Island Museum. The symposium will feature panels of humanities scholars discussing with the audience the intricacies of collecting, the history of ethnographic display, the interface of spectacle and education, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Also on view in the museum will be "The Collector's Cabinet," an installation of astounding artifacts held in private collections. In conjunction with the events at the Coney Island Museum, Observatory's Gallery space will host "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world.

The Congress for Curious People will serve as an academic counterpoint to Coney Island's Congress of Curious Peoples, which Coney Island USA has convened since 2007 at Sideshows by the Seashore. In the past, the Congress has included performances by artists like Joe Coleman and Harley Newman, feats of strength, and world-record breaking attempts, among others. You can find out more about the Congress of Curious Peoples at www.coneyisland.com/congress.shtml.

Saturday, April 17th 11 AM-12:30 PM – Education and Spectacle in 19th and 20th Century Amusements, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Eva Åhrén, author of Death, Modernity, and the Body : Sweden 1870-1940
Andrea Stulman Dennett, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
Amy Herzog, author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Kathy Maher, Executive Director of the Barnum Museum
Moderated by Betsy Bradley, New York Public Library

LUNCH 2-3:30 PM– Cabinets of Curiosity: Collecting Curiosities in the 21st Century, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Joe Coleman, collector and artist
Johnny Fox, collector, performer, founder of The Freakatorium
Evan Michelson, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Mike Zohn, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Moderated by Aaron Beebe, Director of the Coney Island Museum

4-5:30 PM – Freaks and Monsters: The Politics of Bodily Display, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Mike Chemers, author of Staging Stigma: A Critical History of the American Freak Show
Nadja Durbach, author of Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Michael Sappol, Historian of the National Library of Medicine and author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America
Moderated by Jennifer Miller, Bearded Lady and founder of Circus Amok

6-8 PM Drinks and light fare

Sunday, April 18th 12-2 PM – A History of Cultural Display in World’s Fairs and Sideshows, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Lucian Gomoll, University of California at Santa Cruz
Alison Griffiths, author of Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn of the Century Visual Culture
Barbara Mathé, Archivist, American Museum of Natural History
Moderated by Aaron Glass, author of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural Biography and In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting

2 PM – Closing remarks



RELATED EXHIBITIONS

The Secret Museum
An exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts, by Joanna Ebenstein, co-founder of Observatory and creator of Morbid Anatomy.
Location: Observatory
Opening Party: Saturday, April 10, 7-10; on view On view from April 10th-May 16th, 3-6 Thursday and Friday, 12-6 Saturday and Sunday
Admission: Free

The Collectors Cabinet
An exhibition which will showcase astounding objects held in private collections, including artifacts featured in Joanna Ebenstein's Private Cabinet photo series of 2009. Featured cabinetists include Curious Expeditions and Observatory's Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, and Morbid Anatomy and Observatory's Joanna Ebenstein.
LOCATION: * Coney Island Museum, Brooklyn

Image: "Femme à Barbe, Musée Orfila.Courtesy of Paris Descartes University.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples--including nightly performances and the epic opening night party--click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside. For information about the Coney Island Museum--including address and directions--click here.

"The Congress for Curious People," in Conjunction with The Coney Island Museum, April 9-18th

Click on image or here to download full-sized broadside as seen above. Prints up to 11 X 17.

Morbid Anatomy and Observatory are pleased to present, in conjunction with the Coney Island Museum, "The Congress for Curious People!"

The Congress will span 10 days--from April 9 to April 18th--and will include the following:

• a 2-day open-to-the-public conference featuring artist/collector Joe Coleman, the Freakatorium's Johnny Fox, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy Melissa Milgrom, curator of the incomparable Dream Anatomy Mike Sappol, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America Andrea Stulman Dennett and Obscura Antiques and Oddities' Evan Michelson and Mike Zohn on panels examining the collecting of curiosities, the history of ethnographic display and the interface of spectacle and education in 19th and 2oth Century amusements, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world.

• A week of nightly lectures (supplemented by half-price drinks at the bar till 7!) covering such topics as the taxidermy of Victorian curiosity-collector Walter Potter, the history of automata featuring an actual automata demonstration, a meditation on "the saddest object in the world," taxidermy in the fine arts by a Minnesota Rogue Taxidermist, and the first American museologist Charles Wilson Peale discussed by one of his descendants!
  
  
• A 2-week "Collectors Cabinet"on view for the entirety of the event, showcasing astounding objects held in private collections!
  
  
• Opening party for "The Secret Museum," an exhibition hosted by Observatory exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts.

As you can see, this is a very complicated beast of an event, and, to make it yet more complicated, the Congress for Curious People is part of a larger Coney Island USA event called the Congress of Curious Peoples! Here is how the Coney Island Museum website manages to explain the whole:

Since the 1860's, Coney Island has been a beacon for strange and interesting people. For generations, it has attracted the curious and the enlightened, the onlooker and the performer. Every spring Coney Island USA convenes The Congress of Curious Peoples, a 10-day gathering of unique individuals at Sideshows by the Seashore and the Coney Island Museum, celebrating Coney Island's subversive and exciting power and exploring its political, artistic, and spectacular possibilities through performances, exhibitions, and films by important artists in the world of the 21st century sideshows.

Adding to the madness, this year, in conjunction with Observatory and the Morbid Anatomy Library, Coney Island USA introduces the Congress for Curious People. Consisting of a 2-day symposium and 5-day lecture series, this additional congress will take a scholarly yet popular approach to the curiosities and wonders of Coney Island and seek to investigate--via lectures and and a scholarly conference--the relationship between education and spectacle in American amusements, the collection of curiosities from the renaissance to the present, and the display of "freaks" and "primitive peoples" in fairgrounds and worlds fair settings. The series will celebrate the interdisciplinarity of Dime Museums while calling into question both popular and scholarly assumptions about the importance of Coney Island's legacy, its sordid past, and its titillating present.

Full details on the "Congress of Curious People" can be found by clicking here. Full details for the "Congress for Curious People" below and organized in the broadside above. Very much hope to see at one (or all!) of these amazing events!

CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE 2-DAY SYMPOSIUM

Date: Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th
Location: Coney Island Museum, 1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn ADMISSION: $25 for full weekend admission
Presented by Morbid Anatomy and Observatory with Coney Island USA
The Congress for Curious People is a 2-day symposium exploring education and spectacle, collectors of curiosities, historical fairground displays and more, in conjunction with The Coney Island Museum. The symposium will feature panels of humanities scholars discussing with the audience the intricacies of collecting, the history of ethnographic display, the interface of spectacle and education, and the politics of bodily display in the amusement parks, museums, and fairs of the Western world. Also on view in the museum will be "The Collector's Cabinet," an installation of astounding artifacts held in private collections. In conjunction with the events at the Coney Island Museum, Observatory's Gallery space will host "The Secret Museum," an exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world.

The Congress for Curious People will serve as an academic counterpoint to Coney Island's Congress of Curious Peoples, which Coney Island USA has convened since 2007 at Sideshows by the Seashore. In the past, the Congress has included performances by artists like Joe Coleman and Harley Newman, feats of strength, and world-record breaking attempts, among others. You can find out more about the Congress of Curious Peoples at www.coneyisland.com/congress.shtml.

Saturday, April 17th 11 AM-12:30 PM – Education and Spectacle in 19th and 20th Century Amusements, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Eva Åhrén, author of Death, Modernity, and the Body : Sweden 1870-1940
Andrea Stulman Dennett, author of Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
Amy Herzog, author of Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Kathy Maher, Executive Director of the Barnum Museum
Moderated by Betsy Bradley, New York Public Library

LUNCH 2-3:30 PM– Cabinets of Curiosity: Collecting Curiosities in the 21st Century, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Joe Coleman, collector and artist
Johnny Fox, collector, performer, founder of The Freakatorium
Evan Michelson, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy
Mike Zohn, Antique and Oddity Dealer, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Moderated by Aaron Beebe, Director of the Coney Island Museum

4-5:30 PM – Freaks and Monsters: The Politics of Bodily Display, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Mike Chemers, author of Staging Stigma: A Critical History of the American Freak Show
Nadja Durbach, author of Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
Michael Sappol, Historian of the National Library of Medicine and author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America
Moderated by Jennifer Miller, Bearded Lady and founder of Circus Amok

6-8 PM Drinks and light fare

Sunday, April 18th 12-2 PM – A History of Cultural Display in World’s Fairs and Sideshows, Lectures and Panel Discussion
Lucian Gomoll, University of California at Santa Cruz
Alison Griffiths, author of Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turn of the Century Visual Culture
Barbara Mathé, Archivist, American Museum of Natural History
Moderated by Aaron Glass, author of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural Biography and In Search of the Hamat’sa: A Tale of Headhunting

2 PM – Closing remarks

A WEEK OF THEMATIC LECTURES AT THE CONEY ISLAND MUSEUM WILL PRECEDE THE SYMPOSIUM:



The Saddest Object in the World
An Illustrated Meditation by Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques and Oddities and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence
Date: Monday, April 12th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
“The Saddest Object in the World” is a meditation on one particular artifact; an exercise in Proustian involuntary memory, aesthetic critique, and philosophical bargaining.

Sometimes objects have consequences.

Evan Michelson is an antiques dealer, lecturer, accumulator and aesthete; she tirelessly indulges a lifelong pursuit of all things obscure and melancholy. She currently lives in another place and time.



A Rogue's Approach to Stuffing It: Taxidermy in Contemporary Pop, Art and Sub-Cultures
Robert Marbury of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists
Date: Tuesday, April 13th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
ave you seen a rise in taxidermy in the world around you? What could be causing this resurgence? A Rogue’s Approach to Taxidermy will identify prominent practitioners of natural history art; discuss popular trends in preservation, presentation and representation; and delve into the sub-culture of artistic taxidermy. Robert will also discuss the highs and lows of running a taxidermy art group, and offer suggestions on which emails to return and who to not let into your house.

Robert Marbury received his BA in Anthropology from Connecticut College and a post-Bac from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He is the co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. Robert is currently curating a Rogue Taxidermy show which will run from May 7th to May 30th at La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles. He lives and works in Brooklyn.




A Brief History of Automata
An Illustrated Lecture and Demonstration by Mike Zohn, Obscura Antiques and Oddities
Date: Wednesday, April 14th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
In this illustrated lecture, Obscura Antique and Oddities‘ Mike Zohn will demonstrate his 19th Century taxidermy automata, as featured in last year’s Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest. He will explain its curious mechanisms, and, in an illustrated lecture, will introduce us to the history of these fascinating uncanny machines, tracing their trajectory from tools of religious coercion to prince’s plaything to Disney’s imagineering experiments.
Mike Zohn is co-proprietor of Obscura Antique and Oddities. He fixes automata in his spare time.

A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste
An Illustrated Presentation By Dr. Pat Morris, Royal Holloway, University of London
Date: Thursday, April 15th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Should taxidermy be viewed as art, science, or bad taste? And why is it so interesting? Dr. Pat Morris’ illustrated lecture “A History of Taxidermy: Art, Science and Bad Taste” will explore these topics and more. His talk will range over the history of stuffed animals, considering how a small-time taxidermist business operated in the 19th century and exploring the many diverse and amusing uses of taxidermy and the taxidermist’s products ranging from major museum exhibits to stuffed pets, hunting trophies, animal furniture, kitten weddings (see above, Walter Potter, circa 1890s), frogs eating spaghetti and squirrels playing cards. He will discuss in detail the work of anthropomorphic taxidermist Walter Potter and his eponymous “Museum of Curiosities,” as detailed in his own lavishly illustrated book on that topic, which will be available for sale at the lecture.

Dr. Pat Morris is a retired staff member of Royal Holloway College (University of London), where he taught biology undergraduates and supervised research on mammal ecology. In that capacity he has published many books and scientific papers and featured regularly in radio and TV broadcasts. The history of taxidermy has been a lifelong hobby interest and he has published academic papers and several books on the subject. With his wife Mary he has travelled widely, including most of Europe and the USA, seeking interesting taxidermy specimens and stories. They live in England where their house is home to the largest collection and archive of historical taxidermy in Britain.


















Charles Wilson Peale and the Birth of the American Museum
An Illustrated Presentation by Samuel Strong Dunlap, PhD, Descendant of Charles Wilson Peale
Date: Friday, April 16th
Time: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: The Coney Island Museum
Long time historian and editor of the Peale Family Papers Dr. Lillian B. Miller (now deceased) described Charles Willson Peale as a true renaissance man. Peale is perhaps best remembered today as the founder of America’s first cabinet-of-curiosity like museum–the Philadelphia Museum (later the Peale Museum)–which housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens and can be viewed in the image above. Famously, Peale’s museum also pioneered the habitat group–or natural history diorama–an art form memorably perfected by such museums as the American Museum of Natural History and Chicago’s Field Museum in the early 20th Century.

In this illustrated lecture, we will learn about Peale the museologist, and examine how his museological work continuously overlap with his inventive, artistic, scientific, literary and exploratory interests. Peale was a friend or acquaintance with most of the military, scientific, diplomatic and foreign individuals who played significant roles in our revolutionary war and the early growth of our democracy.


RELATED EXHIBITIONS

The Secret Museum
An exhibition exploring the poetics of hidden, untouched and curious collections from around the world in photographs and artifacts, by Joanna Ebenstein, co-founder of Observatory and creator of Morbid Anatomy.
Location: Observatory
Opening Party: Saturday, April 10, 7-10; on view On view from April 10th-May 16th, 3-6 Thursday and Friday, 12-6 Saturday and Sunday
Admission: Free

The Collectors Cabinet
An exhibition which will showcase astounding objects held in private collections, including artifacts featured in Joanna Ebenstein's Private Cabinet photo series of 2009. Featured cabinetists include Curious Expeditions and Observatory's Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, and Morbid Anatomy and Observatory's Joanna Ebenstein.
LOCATION: * Coney Island Museum, Brooklyn

Image: "Femme à Barbe, Musée Orfila.Courtesy of Paris Descartes University.

To find out more about this event and the larger Congress of Curious Peoples--including nightly performances and the epic opening night party--click here. For more about the Congress for Curious People, click here. Click on image or click here to download a hi-res copy of the above broadside.