Behind the Glass Curtain – The Lives and Work of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka

22019An illustrated lecture by artist and doctor Mark Kessell
Date: Thursday, October 28th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

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 www.studiocyberia.com.

Parallel Botany: The Branch of Flora Linnaeus Overlooked

parallel-botanyDate: Saturday, October 9
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by the Hollow Earth Society

Plants are an alien race.

Animals we “get;” be they insects or invertebrates, they eat, they fight, they mate, they die—all in rather recognizable ways. Aside from being somewhat humdrum household companions, a major source of nourishment, and—for some—the agents of aesthetics and spirituality, plants live their own Black Ops clandestine lives. Cutthroat, dangerous, ingenious, plants make their living on the planet in a manner unto themselves.

And those are the ones we’re familiar with.

That smug sense of triumph early botanists felt once Linnaeus laid down his template for plant taxonomy was destined to be severely jolted by the discovery of the first parallel plants, a here-to-fore unknown vegetal kingdom that challenged all acquired knowledge to date. One might say that, of the two botanies, mainstream plants are the prose of the world of flora, parallel plants the poetry.

It was botanist-savant and renowned children’s book author/illustrator Leo Lionni who first coined the phrase “parallel botany”—simultaneously giving a name and a definition to this emergent science. Because of its implications of unassailable “otherness,” the word “parallel” spared scientists the nightmare of seeing their beloved Linnaean system completely invalidated.

Prior to Lionni’s discovery, intrepid bloom-raiders pursued cryptobotany, the protoscience devoted to the search for undiscovered and as yet unclassified, “hidden,” plants. Parallel Botany—the science and the lecture—ventures into the fringe territory of a fringe discipline. It follows the tendrils of the strange into the realm of the nearly unimaginable.

The diverse fields of paleo-, ethno-, and cryptobotany, aesthetics, semiotics, psycholinguistics, parapsychology, and how God must have freelanced for Disney when She/He created the kingdom—the two kingdoms—of plants will be touched on during this compulsively-illustrated exploration.

Ted Enik—perpetrator of last June’s Cutegsam!—has shared a half-dozen NY apartments with umpteen generations of the same purple faux-shamrock plant (Oxsalis regnellii). Phototropic little creature, it crowds round his lamplit drawing table when he works at night (painting silverbells, cockle shells, pretty maids in a row) and gives him telepathic pointers. You can find out more about Ted and his work at www.tedenik.com.

Bards and Bourbon: A Reading/Talk With Kentucky Poets Michael Morse & Matthew Lippmann

morse-and-lippmannA Reading/Talk With Kentucky Poets Michael Morse & Matthew Lippmann
Date: Saturday, October 30
Time: 7:00 PM
Admission: Free
Presented by the Hollow Earth Society, Typecast Publishing, & the Letter Home Reading Series

Bourbon, in the early twentieth century, fought its way back from the gloomy depths of American federal prohibition. Poetry continues to scrape its way into the living rooms, radios, ears, and minds of literate Americans. Combining these two forces creates infinite possibilities and a multiplicity of manifold-dimensional experiences. Neuroscientists and physicists alike advise that no one should stand under the normal umbrellas of apathy when the combination of a good bourbon cocktail and a first-rate poem mingle in the same ether.

So, for this performative celebration, we are bringing together sour-mash-straight-bourbon-whiskey direct from Kentucky (in the cocktail, neat, shaken, or iced formats) and, for your listening pleasure, two wonderful poets. Of the utmost importance, which is to say, last and not least, we will also be celebrating the new release of Matthew Lippman’s book Monkey Bars (he’s one of the poets who will be reading). Lippman’s dear friend, the fantastic Michael Morse, will also donate his word-compositions to the listening audience. We will be scientifically examining the effects and minusculeties of what occurs when a Kentucky press undertakes the long journey to Brooklyn.

Matthew Lippman claims that he aspires to have his poetry to do many things: “I want my poetry to entertain the masses. I want my poems to be in waiting areas at the dentist office where a woman, a geologist, let’s say, picks up my book and flips to page 36 where she finds a poem about a father and his daughter going for a drive, almost getting mowed down by a woman who runs a stop sign. I want that geologist to laugh when she reads the poem. I want her to be as compelled by the poem as she might be about a piece of granite she finds in Italy at an excavation site. I want the poem to make her feel sad and sweet and pure up until the minute she lay back in the dentist’s chair to get a cavity filled and even then, for the poem to tickle her somewhere inside while the drill bit makes that whirring sound right before the DDS begins to do her thing.” Lippman’s second collection, Monkey Bars, is published by Typecast Publishing. His first collection, The New Year of Yellow, won the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize and is published by Sarabande Books. He teaches at Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Michael Morse’s main poetic goal is to be musical as they provoke thought and feeling. Morse teaches English at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City and poetry at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. He was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown from 2008–20110, and his poems have appeared in various journals, including Agni, A Public Space, The Canary, The Literary Review, Tin House, Ploughshares, Spinning Jenny, and the Iowa Review. Work can also be found in Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days (The University of Iowa Press) and on the and From the Fishouse website (www.fishousepoems.org).

The Marvelous Hairy Girls and the Limits of Femininity

gonzales-familybAn Illustrated Lecture by Merry Wiesner-Hanks, author of The Marvelous Hairy Girls: The Gonzales Sisters and their Worlds
Date: Friday, October 1
Time: 8pm
Admission: $5
Presented by Curious Expeditions and Morbid Anatomy

The genetic abnormality now known as hypertrichosis universalis, in which much of the body is covered with hair, is extremely rare. Fewer than 50 cases have been documented world wide over the last five hundred years, but they continue to be a source of fascination, covered in news reports and imagined as characters in films. Six of the world’s fifty cases were members of one family, the sixteenth-century Petrus Gonzales and his two hairy sons and three hairy daughters. They were not displayed as freaks, but lived at the courts of Europe, where they were examined by scientists and their portraits painted by male and female artists.

This lecture will examine the ways in which the Gonzales sisters—both their persons and portraits-challenged early modern people (and us) to think about the limits of femininity, that is, the borders of what is considered a “woman.” Their story provides insights into the complex relationships between beastliness, monstrosity, and sex.

Merry Wiesner-Hanks is a Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author or editor of over twenty books that have appeared in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Chinese, and Korean, including Gender in History: Global Perspectives and Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World. This lecture draws on her recent book, The Marvelous Hairy Girls: The Gonzales Sisters and their Worlds, published by Yale.

Masterpiece Comics: Looking at Literature through Cartoons

rsikoryakAn Illustrated Lecture with Cartoonist R. Sikoryak
Date: Thursday, September 23rd
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Part of the Oxberry Pegs Presents series
Books will be available for sale and signing.

Cartoonist R. Sikoryak adapts classic literature using the styles and characters of American comics and animated cartoons. His stories have been collected in the 2009 book Masterpiece Comics (Drawn and Quarterly). In tonight’s illustrated slide show, Sikoryak will discuss the long history of adapting literature into cartoons (from the 1940’s “Classics illustrated” series to today’s “Manga Shakespeare”), read from his work, and detail his own intensive working process.Through the last century, many cartoonists have adapted a variety of classic novels and plays; their approaches range from the respectful to the hilarious to the revelatory. Sikoryak will demonstrate the wide range of visual styles and narrative strategies employed by cartoonists when they collaborate with a great author.

R. Sikoryak is the author of Masterpiece Comics (Drawn & Quarterly). His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in The Onion, The New Yorker, Nickelodeon Magazine, Mad, Fortune, and many other publications; he’s drawn for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Ugly Americans. Sikoryak teaches in the illustration department at Parsons The New School for Design. Since 1997, he has presented his cartoon slide show series, Carousel, around the United States and Canada. You can find out more about him at www.rsikoryak.com.

The Cube of Space: Container of Creation

Kepler's Platonic solid model of the Solar system from Mysterium Cosmographicum (1600)

Kepler's Platonic solid model of the Solar System from "Mysterium Cosmographicum" (1600)

An evening with Kevin Townley, author of Cube of Space: Container of Creation
Date: Monday, September 13
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by J.E. Cross of Lvx Occulta
Books will be available for purchase and signing.

“In the study of the Qabalah, there is no more important glyph than the Cube of Space, with, perhaps, the exception of the “Tree of Life.” -Dr Paul Foster Case

Join us tonight with Kevin Townley author of Cube of Space: Container of Creation, for an illustrated meditation on the enigma and importance of the Cube of Space in esoteric thought. Books will be available for sale and signing.

Kevin Townley entered the Carmelite Seminary in his early teens to study for the Catholic priesthood. After leaving the seminary, he began a lifelong study of the ancient Universal Wisdom as taught by various world traditions which include astrology, alchemy, magic, Tarot, and a host of other subjects. He has studied and lectured in Europe, Asia, and all over the United States. He presently lives in Boulder, Colorado where he continues his studies and teaching of the Ageless Universal Wisdom. He is a member of the BOTA and is an esoteric Freemason. He is the author of Cube of Space: Container of Creation and Meditations on the Cube of Space.

(Un)Natural Histories: Animation and Automata Influenced by Nature, Science, and Technology

unnaturalhistory1Date: Thursday, September 30
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Part of the Oxberry Pegs Presents series

Join The DuKode Studio as it screens four decades of science-influenced animation and film by Beryl Sokoloff, Crista Grauer, Ilias Koen, and Arlene Ducao. From straightforward explanations of moss reproduction and gravitational lensing, to surreal meditations on robots, birth, and social psychology, each of these animations is tied to some aspect of existence beyond the realm of human visibility.

Sokoloff, Grauer, Koen, and Ducao have all made creative work at the site of the “once-grand St. Nicholas Hotel” (Frommer’s) in Soho. Their output ranges from motorized woodcut boxes to iPhone apps, and their animation techniques include 16mm filming, hand-drawing, 3-D computer modeling, and procedural data interpreting.

Beryl Sokoloff (1918-2006) was a cellist, painter, photojournalist, and filmmaker. Born in the Bronx and raised in Philadelphia, he worked on WPA (Works Progress Administration) projects and was a Pacific Island meteorologist during WWII. His film work is a testament to his involvement in the Abstract Expressionist Movement and downtown New York City.

Crista Grauer (b. 1938) was born in Buffalo, NY and studied at Skidmore College and Parsons School of Design. Grauer met Sokoloff in 1963, and his work influenced Grauer to take a more kinetic direction with her own work. Over the course of her career, she has made dozens of mixed-media constructions that she calls “Motorized Boxes.”

The DuKode Studio focuses on creative data transposition to many forms, including software, animation, print, and physical objects. DuKode’s clients and associates include the American Museum of Natural History, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation. Its current projects include art-matching software, a car-light-like helmet cap, and an iPhone fitness instructor. Arlene Ducao (b. 1980) and Ilias Koen (b. 1977), DuKode’s principals, first collaborated in a 2003 Physical Computing class at the School of Visual Arts MFA Computer Art program.

“Behind the Scenes and Under the Skin” or, “The Body at Blythe”

A125175An illustrated talk by Lisa O’Sullivan, Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum, London
Date: Tuesday, September 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Join Lisa O’Sullivan, Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum, London for a behind-the-scenes look at the Museum stores. As is the case for many large museums, only about 5% of the Science Museum’s objects are ever on display. This is an opportunity to see some of the other 95% - as photographed by Morbid Anatomy’s Joanna Ebenstein on a recent visit.

The Museum’s ‘small objects’, all 203,000 of them, are stored at Blythe house, an early 20th century office building (larger objects live in aircraft hangars in the West of England). Over 100,000 of these artefacts are medical, the majority from the Wellcome collection. Over 30 rooms hold objects from Roman votives to mediaeval saints, x-ray machines to. The collection displays the breadth of Henry Wellcome’s collecting, and vision of medicine.

Lisa will conduct a virtual tour of some of the rooms, highlight some of her – anatomical – favourites amongst the objects, and take questions about life ‘backstage’ at the Museum.

Lisa O’Sullivan is the Senior Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum in London, where she curates the Wellcome collections. She is responsible for the anatomical collections, and all issues relating to human remains in the museum. Lisa’s doctorate looked at the construction of nostalgia as a clinical category in nineteenth-century France. In addition she has degrees in medical anthropology, history and literature. In 2010, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney.

Seducing Spiders

spinningmachine2002An illustrated lecture exploring methods of spider seduction by artist and researcher Eleanor Morgan
Date: Friday, October 29
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

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.

BEYOND BIBA: A PORTRAIT OF BARBARA HULANICKI Film Screening

beyond-biba-barbara-hulanicki-movie-posterDate: Friday, September 17th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $10
Presented by Phantasmaphile

Please join us for this special screening of BEYOND BIBA: A PORTRAIT OF BARBARA HULANICKI (November Films), about the fashion icon and mastermind behind BIBA, once the world’s most decadent and innovative clothing store. BIBA remains one of the most evocative names in British design history; it pioneered a new style, mixing the contemporary with Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the golden age of Hollywood, dressing itself in the richly luxuriant colors of a bygone time.

Barbara Hulanicki will always be remembered for BIBA, the shop that changed the face of UK fashion in the 1960s and 70s. A phenomenon in the truest sense of the word, BIBA would leave an indelible mark on the minds and wardrobes of the customers who ventured through its doors.

Just as Barbara was a key ingredient in the cultural explosion that occurred in London during the 1960s, she also found herself at the birth of the incredible regeneration of Miami Beach in the late 1980s and 90s. This is where she still resides, and continues to work as one of the most respected interior designers in the United States.

The film provides an invaluable glimpse into Barbara Hulanicki today. A rare insight into the woman herself, her memories of her father’s murder, the impossible glamour of Biba, the impact of her husband Fitz on her life, her thoughts on modern America and her refusal to give up and live in the shadow of the past. The film focuses on these elements, and more, to create an all access portrait of an overlooked and elusive artist.