Deady Or Not, Here I Come

The WA museum is pretty great. I've been visiting with my family since I was very small (no entry fee plus bonus air conditioning made it our parents' favourite excursion), so many of the exhibits seem like old friends.

There have been various refurbishments over the years, but my favourites are still there: namely, the taxidermy zoo, skeleton collection, and an assortment of once-living things pickled in jars.

Yes my favourite things are all dead. It is a museum, after all.

















One of the best new additions is the huge dinosaur in the lobby, which was painstakingly created by museum staff.






For some reason I neglected to take a full body shot, so it's hard to see how big it really is. Too obsessed with the small details, as usual. I will go back sometime soon and take more pics. Or you can go see it yourself... if you dare!



My main reason for visiting was to catch the Extraordinary Stories exhibition before it finished today.


This exhibit features a variety of British Museum artifacts, from million-year-old tools to more contemporary Maori and Aboriginal art. The whole thing was fascinating. I didn't take many photographs as the light was kept dim to preserve the items, however there were a couple that caught my eye in particular.

Cristovao Canhavato's throne of weapons, for instance:




If you can make out the quote below, the artist explains that the smiley faces in the chair were actually incidental features of the guns themselves. Strange to find happy faces on killing machines.


The other piece that caught my eye was near the end of the exhibit (which was organised in chronological order): a treasure box made by the Haida people of the West Coast of Canada.



I especially like the origin story accompanying the box, which features a secretive old man, a shape shifting raven and a daring heist.



If you happen to live in Perth and haven't seen Extraordinary Stories yet, you have until 5pm this afternoon to rectify that situation. Hurry! A few more hours, then most of these goodies will be shipped back to the motherland.

Of course, there are always other things to look at in Perth. Like my friend the urban cactus:




Or... this:


Hmm.

Big Mouth II

Not too much explanation required here, I think.





Still here? Excellent!

If you were to Google image search vagina dentata (and I'm not suggesting you should, so don't blame me) you would find this pic making a regular appearance:

[Via]

I can't think why. It is the Sarlacc pit from Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. I, for one, am very impressed by George Lucas' creativity in this scene.

Always interesting to observe the grotesquification of the female anatomy in pop culture. This particular incarnation seems to give the woman involved a fair bit of power in relation to the predatory males she inevitably encounters.

The Jewellery of Dr Moreau

I recently discovered the animal themed works of Tithi Kutchamuch.





She says:

"Growing up, I don’t remember a time when we didn’t have some sort of animal in the house. At one point we even had peacocks, hedgehogs and a gibbon ape. Even though I’m travelling quite a lot, living in London was the very first time that I didn’t have any animals around me. I began making my first collection, A Secret Friend, a few months after I found out that my dog at my parent home in Bangkok pass away. For me animals and sculpture represent a strong sense of home. The jewellery I make is a way of bringing a piece of home with me."

Most of her work is pretty cute.

This, however, takes it to the next level:













As Kutchamuch says, she views her works primarily as loving tributes to animal friends. In the context of environmental destruction and mass extinctions however, it is hard to deny the poignancy of wearing a creature's organs around your neck. Quite a comment on our culture of consumption and self beautification. It's disturbing. I approve.

[Via Street Anatomy]

Cultural Grotesques II

During my visit to the British Museum last year, I noticed that certain sculptures in the Greek/Roman exhibit were grouped together under the heading of 'grotesque figures.' In a post titled Cultural Grotesques, I commented that this arrangement could be seen to illustrate the subjective and contemporary nature of the term 'grotesque' as it relates to certain bodies, specifically the aged, disabled, and racial 'Others.'

So, what should I see during my visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but a remarkably similar grouping of figures... The following statues were brought together in a case titled "Realism in Hellenistic Art" in the Roman section (click to enlarge):






































Note: the 'type' referred to above links to the realistic depiction of age, and the larger associated statue is this one:








I didn't get the whole caption for some reason, but you get the gist of it.

These small figures were in the case right beside the Realism case shown above:




The first two are explicitly related to the 'grotesque dwarf' in the Realism case, by virtue of their status as 'grotesques' in the museum description. The third is understood to be a 'grotesque head.'








While none of the heads in the Realism case were explicitly described as 'grotesque heads,' their close proximity with the head labeled 'grotesque' above arguably draws them into a discursive parallel. Likewise, while not all of the bodies present in the Realism case were called 'grotesques,' the presence of more than one body with that label has a defining effect upon the group as a whole.

By marking these particular figures as grotesque and dividing them from the rest of the collection, both the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum actively engage with and produce the grotesque as a cultural category. They also endorse and perpetuate a Bakhtinian understanding of the grotesque as that which is in direct opposition to the 'classical' style of seamless physical perfection.

I'm not suggesting that the depiction of aged, non-white or alternatively shaped bodies is not remarkable in the context of Greek sculpture. Rather, I'm interested in the effect that sectioning and regrouping these bodies might have in a museum environment today, especially when using the term 'grotesque' as one of their unifying characteristics. By linking the elderly body, the non-white body, the disabled body, and even the anorexic body, the Realism case might be seen to reflect a notion of shared marginality that says less about history and more about contemporary views of the body. It is food for thought.