Category Archives: Anatomy

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

For medical museums, whose collections are typically composed of evocative historical objects, developments in contemporary biomedicine offer a twofold challenge to collecting and exhibiting. The first challenge is the nature of contemporary biomedical equipment: large, expensive, and without immediately obvious function (think fMRI scanner). Where a display of surgeons’ tools can be both instructive and chilling, a collection of grey-box scanners and robotic surgical suites is likely to offer both historians and visitors less. The second challenge is more fundamental: medical investigation and treatment now operates beyond the limits of the visible, at the level of genes and proteins, a scale which it is hard to relate to our own bodies and lived experience. Even the beautifully-limned image of an SEMmed protein can’t offer the visceral thrill of corporeal recognition that a pickled heart in a jar does...

For the curious among you: The Wellcome Collection's Danny Birchall has written a very nice conference report--as excerpted above--about last month's ‘Contemporary Medical Science and Technology as a Challenge to Museums’ EAMHMS Congress in Copenhagen.

Click here to read full report on Danny's blog "Museum Cultures."

Image: Installation view of Medical Museion, the host institution in Copenhagen.

October is going to be a very exciting month for Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory, with topics spanning the art and lives of the amazing Blaschka glass modelers (see their lovely glass radiolarian above!), the "inter-cultural biography of the Totem Pole," spider seduction, and one man's artifact-inspired journey into the history of the legend of the human-skin lampshade. Also, stay tuned for an announcement of the Observatory annual Day of the Dead Party, to take place on the afternoon of Sunday, October 31.

See following for the full list of events; hope to see you at one or more of these events!

The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans An illustrated lecture and book signing with Mark Jacobson, author
Date: Friday, October 22
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Books will be available for sale and signing

Few growing up in the aftermath of World War II will ever forget the horrifying reports that Nazi concentration camp doctors had removed the skin of prisoners to makes common, everyday lampshades. In The Lampshade, bestselling journalist Mark Jacobson tells the story of how he came into possession of one of these awful objects, and of his search to establish the origin, and larger meaning, of what can only be described as an icon of terror.

Jacobson’s mind-bending historical, moral, and philosophical journey into the recent past and his own soul begins in Hurricane Katrina–ravaged New Orleans. It is only months after the storm, with America’s most romantic city still in tatters, when Skip Henderson, an old friend of Jacobson’s, purchases an item at a rummage sale: a very strange looking and oddly textured lampshade. When he asks what it’s made of, the seller, a man covered with jailhouse tattoos, replies, “That’s made from the skin of Jews.” The price: $35. A few days later, Henderson sends the lampshade to Jacobson, saying, “You’re the journalist, you find out what it is.” The lampshade couldn’t possibly be real, could it? But it is. DNA analysis proves it.

This revelation sends Jacobson halfway around the world, to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, where the lampshades were supposedly made on the order of the infamous “Bitch of Buchenwald,” Ilse Koch. From the time he grew up in Queens, New York, in the 1950s, Jacobson has heard stories about the human skin lampshade and knew it to be the ultimate symbol of Nazi cruelty. Now he has one of these things in his house with a DNA report to prove it, and almost everything he finds out about it is contradictory, mysterious, shot through with legend and specious information.

Through interviews with forensic experts, famous Holocaust scholars (and deniers), Buchenwald survivors and liberators, and New Orleans thieves and cops, Jacobson gradually comes to see the lampshade as a ghostly illuminator of his own existential status as a Jew, and to understand exactly what that means in the context of human responsibility.

Mark Jacobson has been a staff writer and contributing editor at the Village Voice, Esquire, Natural History, Rolling Stone. He is currently contributing editor at New York Magazine. He is the author of many books including the novels Gojiro and currently, The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story From Buchenwald to New Orleans, as recently featured in a recent issue of New York Magazine. To find out more, click here.

Tall Tales of the Totem Pole: The Intercultural Biography of an Icon An illustrated talk by anthropologist Aaron Glass
Date: Sunday, October 24
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Books will be available for sale and signing

To mark the release of The Totem Pole: An Intercultural History, co-author Aaron Glass will discuss how carved heraldic monuments from the Northwest Coast have become central symbols for the Native American at large. Dispelling many common myths, he reconstructs the intercultural history of the art form from the late 1700s—when Europeans first arrived on the coast—to the present, and describes how two centuries of colonial encounter transformed these indigenous carvings into a category of popular imagination and souvenir kitsch. Glass presents theories on the origin of the totem pole; its spread from the Northwest Coast to World’s Fairs and global theme parks; the history of tourism and its appropriation as a signifier of place; the role of governments, museums, and anthropologists in collecting and restoring poles; and the part that these carvings have continuously played in Native struggles for sovereignty over their cultures and lands. From the (many) world’s tallest totem pole(s) to the smallest, from depictions of whites on poles to the use of poles in advertising, this talk will explore the multifarious histories of these iconic forms.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Aaron Glass is an anthropologist and artist who works with indigenous people in British Columbia and Alaska. His past research, along with a companion film “In Search of the Hamat’sa” examined the ethnographic representation and performance history of the Kwakwaka’wakw “Cannibal Dance.” He has published widely on various aspects of First Nations art, media, and performance on the Northwest Coast, and was recently involved in the restoration of Edward Curtis’s 1914 silent film, “In the Land of the Headhunters.” Glass is currently an Assistant Professor at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City, where he is curating the exhibit “Objects of Exchange,” opening in January 2011.

Behind the Glass Curtain – The Lives and Work of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka
An illustrated lecture by artist and doctor Mark Kessell
Date: Thursday, October 28th Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolf (1857-1939) Blaschka, a father and son team based in Dresden, Germany, spent decades creating thousands of extremely realistic and exquisitely beautiful glass flowers for Harvard University. The Blaschkas also created thousands of equally unforgettable models of marine invertebrates and other botanicals to fill the cabinets of burgeoning natural history museums the world over. The models they created–such as the one pictured above–are now appreciated as much as art objects, treasured for their fragile beauty and immaculate craftsmanship, as for their anatomical accuracy and didactic potential.

Like many modelers of their time, The Blaschkas were famously reclusive men who avoided publicity and took the secrets of their art to the grave. Step behind the “glass curtain” as Mark Kessell brings the Blaschkas to life with a look at their work and an intimate tour of their personal world.

Mark Kessell is an Australian medical doctor and professional artist working in New York City. Most of his work has a biological or scientific focus. He is represented by Kim Foster Gallery in Chelsea where his next exhibition, “Specimen Box” will open in March 2011. You can find out more about his work at http://www.studiocyberia.com.

Spider Seduction
An illustrated lecture exploring methods of spider seduction by artist and researcher Eleanor Morgan
Date: Friday, October 29
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

Artist and researcher Eleanor Morgan will discuss the history of our use of spiders’ silk, the courtship and mating of spiders, and spiders’ attraction to human music and song. The event will also include a recorded duet between the artist and a spider plucking its web.

Eleanor Morgan is an artist and researcher based in London, UK. Her work explores the relationship between nature and culture, and she attempts to create art that hovers between the two. This has included embracing a giant green sea anemone, encouraging ants to draw self-portraits and weaving with spiders’ silk. She is currently working towards a PhD on spiders at the Slade school of fine art, University College London. You can find out more about her at eleanormorgan.com.

To find out more, click here, here, here and here, respectively. 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: 'Highly magnified model of a single cell radiolarian (Actinophrys sol). Diameter: 200mm (including spines). From the online exhibit "Sea creatures of the deep - the Blaschka Glass Models;" See the entire exhibit by clicking here; click on image to see larger, more detailed image.

For all you Londoner's out there: on Thursday, October 7th at 6:00 PM, I will be giving a free lecture at University College London about anatomical museums and their curious denizens, heavily illustrated with many photographs I have been collecting over the years, such as those seen above.

The lecture is free and open-to-the-public. Full details follow; hope to see you there!

Anatomical Venuses, The Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig:
A Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum
Date: Thursday, October 7th
Time: 6 PM
Location: UCL, Department of History of Art
20 Gordon Square, WC1E 6BT London, Room 3-4 (first floor)

Tonight's lecture will introduce you to the the Medical Museum and its curious denizens, from the Anatomical Venus (see above) to the Slashed Beauty, the allegorical fetal skeleton tableau to the taxidermied bearded lady, the flayed horseman of the apocalypse to the three fetuses dancing a jig. The lecture will contextualize these artifacts by situating them within their historical context via a discussion of the history of medical modeling, a survey of the great artists of the genre, and an examination of the other death-related diversions which made up the cultural landscape at the time that these objects were originally created, collected, and exhibited.

You can download an invitation to the event by clicking here.

All Images From The Secret Museum Exhibition;" Top to bottom:

1. Anatomical Venuses," Wax Models with human hair in rosewood and Venetian glass cases,The Josephinum, Workshop of Clemente Susini of Florence circa 1780s, Vienna, Austria
2. Wax Model of Eye Surgery, Musée Orfila, Paris. Courtesy Université Paris Descartes
3. Fetal Skeleton Tableau, 17th Century, University Backroom, Paris

This Saturday, October 2, please join the Morbid Anatomy Library (as seen above) and sister space Observatory as we open our spaces to the public as part of the 14th annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour, or "A.G.A.S.T." There will be snacks, beverages, art, artifacts, and, of course, books.

Following are the full details; Very much hope to see you there!

14th annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour (A.G.A.S.T.)
Saturday October 2nd
12-6 PM
543 Union Street at Nevins, Brooklyn
Free and Open to the Public

Directions: Enter the Morbid Anatomy Library and Observatory via Proteus Gowanus Gallery

R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Gallery is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to the second door on the left.

For more about the Morbid Anatomy Library, click here. You can find out more information about A.G.A.S.T., and get a full list of participants, by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory and the exhibition now on view by clicking here.

The photographs above, dating from the 1870s, picture patients who were operated upon by 19th Century surgeon Edward Stamer O’Grady; these photos, all drawn from the incredible Burns Archive, were featured--paired with their original case histories!--in the most recent issue of Scope Medicine in Focus.

Full story can be found here; you can see a PDF of the article--with additional images--by clicking here.

All images ©2010 The Burns Archive; From top to bottom:

1. Patient of Edward Stamer O'Grady
2. A 50-Year-Old Laborer "MM," Admitted Feb 17, 187
3. Once the 27 Ounce Tumor Was Removed, the Patient "Went Home Quite Well."