As many of you may already know, on February 1st, 2008 at five in the morning, a fire burned through Deyrolle, the famous Parisienne collections of natural history.  The above and below photographs are by Martin d'Orgeval's appropriately titled Touched by Fire series was featured in my new favourite paper The Drawbrige which had the following things to say:

"Martin d'Orgeval's photographs show the animals and insects that survived the disaster in situ, against a background of charred woodwork in the shop that had been their habitat since their "natural" death. The objects and the location form an entire work, the result of a strange, unique process in which creation, conservation and destruction have followed on from one another – a process completed and given closure by photography."

A limited edition of d'Orgeval's photographs are available here at http://www.artbook.com/9783865218551.html

Tinkebell, the Dutch performance artist best known for making a handbag out of her own cat (below) and a reversible cat-dog purse known as the popple presented an exhibition of her work at Torch Gallery in Amsterdam late last year.

The Torch gallery offers this analysis of TINKEBELL's work:

"TINKEBELL. provokes by exemplifying the blind spots of modern society. She confronts a public that revels in being indignant about everything that has nothing to do with them, but at the same time is very apologetic about their own actions. She questions why millions of male chicks are brutally killed every day (often by throwing them against the walls of a barn) but she gets arrested for threatening to do the same in public. Why are people who openly discuss the lowering of the sexual age of consent treated as vile pedophiles, but are 'barely 18' websites intensely popular? By turning her own cat into a handbag she tries to show people their own hypocrisy about the use of animals for consumption and leather production. If anything, her works form a extreme incentive for the discussion of our morals and the way society is developing."

Any thoughts from readers?  What do you think of that reddish fox-like thing being dragged down the street outside Cartier? Is she actually challenging hidden beliefs?  Or are her goulish aesthetics too strong to provoke any thought beyond, "eww .. gross?"

Check out Ehren Seeland's great review of the Ravishing Beasts Exhibition on Ava Living

http://www.avaliving.com/article.php?aid=1411

In celebration of the continuing tour of Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson's nanoq: flat out and bluesome, George Polke invites you for a glass of mulled wine and the screening of nanoq: the journey on Saturday December 12th between 4-6pm.

Between 2002 and 2004 Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson undertook a survey to find every taxidermic polar bear in the UK. In all, thirty-three specimens were traced and photographed in situ. This archive of photographic works also documents the histories of each bear - its place of capture or shooting, the name of the person responsible, the nature or purpose of the expedition, the bear's history in captivity, and its age at death.

Having been exhibited widely in Scandinavia and significantly, at a number of polar museums, the archive is currently touring the UK, opening at the Worcester Museum & Art Gallery this Friday 27 November and at the Manchester Museum on Friday 12 February 2010.

GEORGE POLKE at 3.5 Frederick Terrace London E8 4EW
for further information call Louise 07813306451 or email info@georgepolke.co.uk
http://www.georgepolke.co.uk/

A few unusual pieces from Alex Randall collection of taxidermy and lighting fixtures.  Above "Rat Swarm" with twenty-seven taxidermied rats swarming together into a rat pillar in order to reach the globe of light.  Below is "Duck Desk Lamp."  Check out more at http://www.alexrandall.co.uk/