6 Questions with Jay Kirk

Perhaps you haven't yet read Jay Kirk's Kingdom Under Glass. Good news!  It is now out in paperback.  The book tells the story of the remarkable career of Carl Akeley, the taxidermist who in 1909 dreamed up the African Wing of the American Museum of Natural History. Along the way, Kirk creates a kind of cyclorama of the early twentieth century: eugenicist museum curators; Teddy Roosevelt on safari; “Kodak King” George Eastman baking huckleberry pies in Kenya; and the forty-six-pound heart of P.T. Barnum’s Jumbo, preserved in alcohol. Harper’s asked Kirk six questions about the boundary between history and fiction, navigating racism in primary sources, and Akeley’s artistic legacy.

And in case you need a little more incentive, here is Harper's Magazine's recent interview with Jay, here is a little sampler of interview. (Well, not really a sampler.  Just the first questions.)

1. You first stumbled across Akeley while writing a story for Harper’s. What made you identify him as a subject for a book?

The Harper’s piece was about the non-existence of the Eastern Panther (Puma concolor couguar). I’d been reading a lot of natural history to understand how it had gone extinct in the nineteenth century before making a return as Bigfoot’s feline cousin, and I came across something in passing about a “famous taxidermist” who had once strangled a leopard with his bare hands. When I realized this was the guy behind the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History, I immediately became intrigued. I grew even more so when I learned of his obsession with being a True Artist, and how, in order to fulfill that obsession, he had not only strangled a leopard, but gone on these insane, massive expeditions, dragging with him small armies of painters and sculptors, and terrorizing his African porters along the way. I think what I found so compelling was the idea of anyone going to such preposterous lengths for something that, in the end, as art—or even as the “scientific” contribution it purported to be—was dubious at best. I also liked having a story where I could meditate on the absurdity of adventure in general—for me, it kind of throws a cheery light on the pointlessness of all human ambition. Most appealing, though, was the paradox of Akeley’s character: he killed animals in order to save them.

Read the interview here: http://harpers.org/archive/2011/12/hbc-90008352

Upcoming Exhibit: Fashioning Feathers

If you're in the Edmonton area, make sure to check out this upcoming exhibit: "Fashioning Feathers" curated by Merle Patchett and Liz Gomez.  It showed at the FAB Gallery in Edmonton last year, but will be opening at the Royal Alberta Museum in March.

Read more here: http://fashioningfeathers.com/

Beastly Love: Sarah Bacavis

Beastly Love asks readers to tell us about
their personal affairs with the wild
world of taxidermy. Read more BEASTLY
LOVE or contribute your own pictures and
answers here +

NAME: Sarah Bacavis
AGE: 23
OCCUPATION: Artist and curiosity cabinet designer
LOCATION: Colorado
TOTAL NUMBER OF TAXIDERMY PIECES: 15 or so actual taxidermy mounts, some of which I’m still repairing.

FAVOURITE PIECE: My capybara head is pretty unusual. He came from a Brazilian Safari in the sixties. Apparently while my taxidermist friend was working on repairing him another employee walked in and asked her if he was a baby hippo! The mount traveled all the way from Florida where he was discovered hanging on the wall of an antique store.  The coolest thing about him is he has a giant scar running down his face from where he was once attacked by a Jaguar!  

What was your very first piece of taxidermy? The very first mount I bought came from a local antique store. The guy at the antique store told me he had a llama mount in his back room; it turned out to be a female pronghorn. I didn’t have the heart to correct him.  

Where do you find pieces for your collection? Garage sales, thrift stores, antique stores, and online.

Where do you display your taxidermy?  We live in a small apartment, so all throughout the place! It’s like one big wonder cabinet!

How or when did you become interested in taxidermy? In Kindergarten the teacher had a Barracuda taxidermy mount in the classroom. It was hanging on the wall near the reading area and I used to sit by it and read. I think that sparked the interest in me. It didn’t take long before I had shelves put up in my room so I could display my treasures; skulls and bones found in the creek, the tail of a squirrel I drug home, and mouse bones extracted from countless owl pellets. It was my own personal nature center.  

What do you think taxidermy is?  Art? Souvenir? Kitsch? Nature? There’s taxidermy out there that fits into every one of those niches! Despite some of  he really kitschy pieces out there, I feel strongly that taxidermy is an art form.  It’s an age old art form and antique taxidermy mounts are true time capsules. I like to collect antique Taxidermy pieces especially because they evoke a sense of romanticism. They tell a story of a time period filled with exciting scientific discoveries and expeditions into the “uncivilized” world. 

 

Do any pieces have names? Yep. All of them end up with names. For example our Caribou mount is named Pisces because my husband thought that a Caribou was a fish.

Have you ever prepared a taxidermy mount? In 8^th grade I tanned a deer hide. I ended up with only a tiny hide after most of the hair slipped. Since then I’ve mounted a Faux dog head and a coyote. Mainly I work on restoring older mounts that need a little TLC. But I want to learn.

Do you worry about displaying so much death... that is, do you ever get negative reactions to your collection?  I never see it as death. It feels more like living at the natural history museum. Instead of making people disgusted it seems to intrigue them. Still, I get the typical “Eww they’re looking at me. Creepy!” type of comments from unsuspecting guests once in awhile.

Why do you think taxidermy is back in fashion? Taxidermy seems to mesh well with a variety of popular styles. Now everyone from hipsters, hunters, steam-punkers, vintage lovers, and minimalists love the stuff. Deer heads are no longer relegated to the lodge. It’s nice to see the interest, but I can’t wait for the mainstream fascination to die off...then the prices of beaten up old mounts can drop again!

If you were reincarnated as an animal, what would you be and why? A leopard. They may not be the largest of the big cats but they hold their own.  They’re illusive and independent. They also have a striking sense of fashion.  

The Breathless Zoo is coming!

Here is the front cover of my book - The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and The Culture of Longing. Read more in the catalogue here: http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-05372-1.html

From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Culture of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? The Breathless Zoo suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. By drawing out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance—The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.

Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a ravaged gazelle

Check out Puerto Rico's official Christmas postcard from the Mayor of Puerto Rico, Jorge Santini, and his family.  Apparently, the taxidermied violence is a visual statement of the Mayor's support the San Juan Wildlife Museum.  Or maybe it's a coded warning to his political rivals.

Crazy taxidermy music video

Yes, that's right. Taxidermy is making it into the land of music videos.  James McNicholas of Worker Records just sent me this music video of The Erratic Man featuring the taxidermy collection of Alexis Turner.  Make sure to stay turned for the singing animals.  Apparently those are the lips of singer Bnann Watts.  You'd think by now I would be dulled to the wierdness that surrounds taxidermy, but no.  There is always something new that takes the taxidermy cake.

Some of the animals have actually made a number of media appearances already.  The bear appeared on the red carpet at the "Borat" Film Premiere, the white dove in flight is currently in a window display at Harrods, the stag's head has appeared in various films including Sherlock Holmes and Wolfman.  Go figure.

Martha Stewart and Taxidermy

I don't know why I find this so strange, but I really, really do - Martha Stewart has a spread on taxidermy.  I know the old school practice has gone mainstream, but I hadn't realised it was this pervasive. 

Read the comments -- as ever, taxidermy is completely polarising and generates either complete outrage, shock, and disgust or aesthetic ecstasy. Bold move Martha.

Love it or hate it but check it out at http://www.marthastewart.com/853388/my-home-yours-taxidermy

Ethiopian natural history museum

Many thanks to Yolanda Weima for the following text and photos from the National Museum in Addis, Ethiopia.  The text is from her blog http://yweima.blogspot.com/ 

"here are a few photos from the natural history museum in addis. i stumbled upon the museum on my way somewhere else, and not being able to pass a museum without pause, i soon found myself wandering around inside. it's interesting (and not so unusual) when museums themselves become relics of another era. this museum is clearly dated. this style of taxidermy and diorama's seems to have gone out of style in newer museums and exhibits around the world. the taxidermied creatures show their age, as old taxidermied creatures do.

of course, it's not only in africa that one finds museums-as-time-capsules. visiting the royal museum for central africa near brussels in 2005 was a similar experience. not only were their dated dioramas, but in many rooms the information on display seemed stuck in a colonial era, unchanged since most african countries gained independence around 50 years ago."

  

Not taxidermy, but ...

Check out the fairy creations by Amsterdam artist Cedric Lequieze.  See more of his work at http://laquiezecedric.blogspot.com/

This Object has been Removed ...

This cheeky series of signs were designed by Christina Davis and Jen Bervin to be placed among the specimens at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.  The installation was part of the annual HMNH event  “Bizarre Animals: An Evening of Contemporary Art Interventions” during which artists present works in response to the museum’s collections.

Read more about the event here: http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/press-room/bizarre-animals.html

See more signs here from Christina Davis' flickr account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/csdavis/sets/72157626335833539/

Doggie Heaven?

I have to thank my friend Morgan Mavis of the Contemporary Zoological Conservancy for this one.  Take a peak at these dogs!  The collection of 51 stuffed dogs are at the Castle Bitov in the Czech Republic.

The castle’s last owner, the ever-so-slightly eccentric Baron Georg Haas, was an animal lover – to say the least. He was the proud owner of thousands of animals – including a lioness called Mietzi-Mausi, with whom it is said he enjoyed sharing lunch every day.

But his favourite style of four-legged friend was the humble canine, and he eventually had more than 200 in the castle grounds. It means the castle might well have been the hardest building to sneak into in the 1940s – certainly the hardest to walk around without looking down.

Read more online at the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016284/The-perfectly-preserved-pooches-Castle-Bitov-looks-like-Bitov-chew.html

Hot of the Press!

I just received my copy of The Afterlives of Animals: A Museum Menagerie in the mail! This is a great book with chapters written by academics, artists, journalists, curators, and yours truly. Each essay traces the life, death, and curious "afterlife" of a specific creature.  The beasts include Queen Charlotte's pet zebra, Maharajah the elephant, and Balto the dog -- just to name a few. 

My chapter is on Balto, a black Siberian husky and the lead sled dog of the final leg of the "Great Race of Mercy" during the winter of 1925.  Perhaps you know the story.  Diphtheria had broken out in the tiny town of Nome on the western tip of Alaska.  There was no way to get the antitoxin to Nome, except by dog sled. The extraordinary 674-mile (1,085-kilometer) run -- through blizzards, across a frozen inlet, and in temperatures that dipped below minus sixty degrees-- kept the nation enthralled for five-and-a-half days and was commemorated with the Iditarod Race.  Balto was a hero.  As you might expect, Balto was stuffed after he died.  And of course, that wasn't the end of him.

Buy it online here: http://www.amazon.ca/Afterlives-Animals-Museum-Menagerie/dp/0813931673

"Well, they were death anyways ... "

Check out Merel Bekking's graduation exhibition "Well they were already dead anyway," part of her graduation project from the School of Arts in Utrecht.

The idea for the series started when Merel began researching guilty pleasures.  She interviewed a number of people, but one sentence stood out.  One woman really loved to buy shoes, endless pairs of shoes.  However, these shoes are made from leather and leather is made from cows. But she condoned her addiction by saying saying: "Well, they were already dead anyway," referring to the cows. In Merel's own words: 

This sentence was the basis of the current series. Day-old chicks, residual material from the bio-industry, can be bought frozen for 2 euros 35 per kilo at your local pet store. You buy paint by the liter, fabric by the meter, and apparently chicks by the kilo. In this way, the chicks are not chicks anymore but they are turned in to material.

 Extensive research preceded the current range of products. I was consciously looking for the tension between what you can do and what you can not do, between chic and tacky. In the series, there is a fashionable fur hat, despite of the very clear reference to the origin of this wonderful yellow fur. A classically stuffed chick refers to the dead, yet remains cuddly. Golden porcelain chick pendants are hung on necklaces which is a beautiful sight. However, for every pendant, a new chick was needed, so these are not as innocent as they look. The chick as a stress ball calls on both emotional and physical feelings.

Not taxidermy, but ...

In her ongoing series Mortifera (Latin: dead/deadly animals), artist Julie Anne Mann creates strange new creatures. With approximately 30 different species to date, Mann reconfigures the bones of common animals into mutant or hybrid creatures.  From Mann's website:

Some are purely animal, using a Frankensteinian approach of multiple parts from different donors, while others are the possible results of crossbreeding between animal/flora. Blending traditional science and fantasy it is difficult to discern whether they are extinct animals undiscovered from the past or the future of animals to come. Existing in a netherworld of what is possible or possibly lost these new species, constructed from remnants of the dead, present a somber view of a failing planet, but also remind us of the transient, ephemeral quality of nature.

See more of her work here: http://www.julieannemann.com/mortifera

Taxidermy Down Under

I just received an e-mail from Martha Sear, the Senior Curator at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.  For any readers with an interest in taxidermists -- and particularly women taxidermists -- working in Australia, Sear is your woman.  She did her Ph.D. on colonial women taxidermists and women's participation in international exhibitions. In 1996 I co-curated an exhibition called 'Most Curious and Peculiar: Women Taxidermists in Colonial Sydney' for the Macleay Museum in Sydney: 
http://sydney.edu.au/museums/events_exhibitions/macleay_past/taxidermy_women.shtml 

Whisky the one and only

The BBC has a fascinating project called The History of the World told in 100 objects.  Now, Whisky isn't one of those 100 superlatively fascinatingly locquacious things, but you can find him on the project's website.  He is from the Abergavenny Museum in Wales. 

The Abergavenny Museum is committed to collecting objects of local significance and preserving them for future generations. Whisky the Turnspit dog.  This is the only example of an extinct breed. Dogs like Whiskey were used to turn the spits in the kitchens of big houses. Whiskey came from a house in Skenfrith.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/ryKLhLRqRF6MGhynjUCqjQ

Frog Museum

The Frog Museum in Estavayer-le-Lac, Switzerland contains 108 frogs doing the typical nineteenth-century variety of unfroggy things -- at school, at the barber, in the army, or playing cards -- all created by François Perrier in the mid-nineteenth century.

The museum began in the 1850s with the eccentric Napoleonic guard officer began collecting frogs on his walks across the countryside. The officer would take the frogs home, gut them, and fill the sacks of skin with sand, before posing them in his little scenes. Oddly enough, the museum's holdings also include 200 lamps used by the Swiss railways, as well as a collection of Swiss armaments and battle regalia. Do you have better pictures?  Please send them my way!

http://www.museedesgrenouilles.ch/net/Net_grenouilles.asp?NoOFS=201510&Sty=&NumStr=120

More Finnish Taxidermy

A ways back, Thomas Hamberg submitted images and answers for the Beastly Love questionaire.  See here +  He has just sent me a link to a short video of his home, which is nothing short of remarkable, if not remarkably strange. It's all in Finnish, but you'll get the idea:

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/asuminen/koti-taynna-taytettyja-elaimia/art-1288408148168.html

Also, if you happen to be in Helsinki, Thomas has just opened the only taxidermy-oriented antique store in Finland.  Visitors to Götan Maailma (Göta's world) will find natural history specimens mixed in which curiosities, old medical equipment and other such oddities. Here are a few images:

The New Yorker talks taxidermy

Check out the recent article in the New Yorker about the restorations underway at the American Museum of Natural History.  The dioramas are getting an overhaul. The task at hand is to restore the works to their original state while gently emending wall labels and the like to reflect new knowledge about the animals who gave their lives, and skins, for the depictions.  The scene surely looked something like a Richard Barnes' photograph:

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/08/15/110815ta_talk_gopnik