Alice Leora Briggs: "The bodies were all akimbo and not neatly wrapped up."

Alice Leora Briggs

Somewhere out there the Santa Muerte from Juarez is giving Jimmy Webb a new context: 

By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be risin'.
She'll find the note I left hangin' on her door.

 [ source ]

From PBS Newshour:  An Unflinching Look at Violence in Juarez:

When I first spoke to artist Alice Leora Briggs last spring, Juarez, Mexico, was under siege by rampant gang- and drug-related violence. Briggs had just completed an arts residency in southern New Mexico and frequently traveled the 30 minutes to witness the carnage and aftermath left by a recent spate of murders in and around the border town.

She visited so called "death houses," sites of mass executions, and spent time studying the victims' remains in the city morgue.

"One room is entirely full of bullets from the executions," Brigss said. "I saw an autopsy of a young man who was executed. There was a story in the New York Times about the morgue a day or so after I was there. The photos of the freezers had everything looking tidy. They must have cleaned for them. I was glad to get a different view....The bodies were all akimbo and not neatly wrapped up.... I see things on the news and compare it to what I saw and they do not always jive."

In response to what she saw, Briggs picked up her etching knives and, using an old etching technique from the 13th century called sgraffito, cut through dark wood to reveal images of what was laid before her eyes.

Alongside the graphic images, Briggs also incorporates medieval or renaissance scenes like an old-master draftsman. In a more recent conversation, Briggs explained what drew her to violent depictions: "The first time that I went to Italy, I realized that I was part of an extended tradition in Western art. I mean, you go to Italy, walk into any church, and the subject matter is about torture and death and human suffering. And these are things I think maybe are not entertaining, but certainly are worthy of our attention."

Be sure to check out the slideshow: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/art/Juarez/index.html?type=flash

Thank you, Doe.

The Core Anagogical Allegory: Unpainted to the last

 

Extraordinary pictures show sperm whales hunting at the ocean surface off the coast of New Zealand.

It is perhaps tedious to beat a dead whale but Moby-Dick never ceases to fascinate me with the richness of its allegory. Essentially, I boil it down to these idiosyncratic axioms [all links, save one, go to the works of Charles "Bonesy" Jones on the Laughing Bone Website]: 

Moby-Dick is the Fugitive God, the ship is our system of belief that we use to find/hunt God, Ahab is the God-Haunted Man. And, as always for me, the Truth of Things is at the skeletal level. The Bone equals Reality. The Flesh is the Dream. We are all dreaming the Goddream.

With this in mind, here it is spun out before you as the Good News from the Master of All Who Hunt for God:

But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young sucking whale and a full- grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not catch.

But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any Leviathan's articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. "However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one day, "he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens".

For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last.

- From Moby-Dick:  Chapter LV: Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales

 

Extraordinary pictures show sperm whales hunting at the ocean surface off the coast of New Zealand.

Thanks to Dave Walsh for the link.

To Be Gnawed Out of Our Graves

Beethoven's Skull 

An interesting and amusing article, For Sale: Beethoven's Skull by Keith Thompson in the Huffington Post, tells the story of Paul Kaufman finding Beethoven's skull amongst his mother's possessions: "He happened on an ancient, pear-shaped box labeled 'Beethoven.'" What he found was a skull. After some DNA analysis, it was concluded that the box was indeed labeled correctly.

I cannot help but wonder: what kind of person has Ludwig Van Beethoven's SKULL and fails to mention this to any of her family? I have to laugh at the sheer magnitude of this woman's historical... (only the French have the appropriate term)... nonchalance. Still, it is an exquisite and charming detail that she took the time to write on the box: "Beethoven." Just beautiful.

My aspirations are very modest and I can only hope that one day while searching through my mother's possessions I discover a ancient box labeled "Great Granddady Jones." Hell, I'd even take a complete stranger. Unfortunately, unlike Mr. Kaufman's mother, mine probably doesn't have a skull "forgotten" amongst her possessions.

In my view, it is a shame that we do not honor our ancestors by preserving their skulls on an altar in our homes. Dust them off and set them around the table at Thanksgiving. Deliver drunken Shakesperian monologues while holding them before us. Curse the cat for knocking Grandma down. Or ply the dog with treats to show us where he buried Dad's noggin.

Yes, I know: objections are understood. You just never know what someone might do to your skull and bones. As always, Thomas Browne is most eloquent:

Who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? To be gnawed out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking-bowls, and our bones turned into pipes to delight and sport our enemies, are tragic abominations.

"This rare Dharma item is a Tantric ritual skull that serves as an offering vessel for the Tantric Buddhist religion. It is made from the actual human skull of a Buddhist monk. The eight auspicious symbols are carved into the top of the skull. The eyes are red coral and the rest is adorned with nickel, silver and turquoise. When used, the skullcap was removed and filled with a wine and blood mixture representing "immortality." Then, in an offering by worshipers to the fierce Tantric deities of Hindu India and Buddhist Tibet the liquid was consumed by the monks." 

From McGill Rare & Exotic Collectibles

 

"Quality specimen of a one century old human skullcap from an executed murder. The exterior is painstakingly carved into an eerie likeness of a Tibetan demon's face, and is surrounded by the typical stylized skeleton faces."

From McGill Rare & Exotic Collectibles

Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair.
From Wikimedia Commons 

[ source ]

 

Marina Abramovic

[ source ] 

Marina Abramovic

Thanks to Jeff G. for the key.

Souvenirs From the Ten Month Dream: Sustained by the Mysterious Vapor of Imagination

However, as souvenirs remembrances are still susceptible to diverse modes of reception, which refetishize them into a wide array of meanings, according to the consumers'—and the market's—needs. Outstanding among these is the notion that an object is capable of transcending the limits of its own signification to represent, partially or fully, the whole event that gave it birth. Souvenirs, for example, condense the supposedly founding elements of a particular situation: a certain landscape or view, a famous person, the "typical" objects of a craft or region, an important moment.

- The Souvenir, Celeste Olalquiaga

The hidden door that leads to paradise opens in a place without fissures where everything radiates, sustained by the mysterious vapor of imagination. It is inhabited by unicorns and charming princes. Without realizing it, time suddenly folds like a fan: the enormous red roses obscurely begin to putrefy, the ethereal bodies hang like golden skeletons, and the trees are invaded by stuffed birds and snakes whose skins short-circuit with every kiss. A girl escapes in terror, taking cover under the dry leaves and the barbed wire. She pretends she is an impenetrable rock, concealing herself so she can never be touched, and always longed for.

- The Pandemoniac Junk Shop of Solitude: Kitsch and Death, Celeste Olalquiaga

I Am As You Will Be: The Skeleton in Art

From the Press Release:

Cheim & Read is pleased to announce I Am As You Will Be, a group exhibition of more than thirty works which incorporate the skeleton as subject.

The works in this exhibition are inherently connected to a long history of the skeleton’s artistic representation, and are emblematic of human nature’s ongoing and understandably invested interest in mortality. In his essay for the exhibition catalogue, Tricot summarizes the history of this representation, as well as the skeleton’s appearance in science, literature and philosophy. Hidden but intrinsic to all living beings, the revealed skeleton has long been a harbinger of imminent death, directing the destinies of souls. It has appeared in its iconic, nightmarish uniform of black cape and scythe, has danced naked in a medieval jumble of bones (the “danse macabre”), and has waited patiently, skull-only, on the side table of a vanitas painting, with a vase of wilting flowers and a half-empty hour glass. Repeated, abstracted, and stylized through out history, the skeleton indicates the inevitable passing of time and ultimately mocks the fruitless hope for immortality.

Via the always enlightening gmtPlus 9 (-15)

A clear reaction to a consciousness of 'time'

Anonymous, Ivory Carving, 1640

Artempo

Via the always delightful Giornale Nuovo:

We see especially that transience is a part of life in the 17th-century Vanitas and Nature Morte paintings, which aim to remind us of life's inevitable passage with beautiful flowers, fruits and animals. The collection of fantasy objects from natural history museums belongs in this category, as do Jan Fabre's sculptures made of beetles. Images of death or working with dead people or animals (or their skeletons) are not only a clear reaction to a consciousness of 'time'; they also allow us to escape 'time'.

- From Artempo: Vanitas / Nature Morte

The virtual tour is highly suggested.

❂

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

- T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, Four Quartets

Thought with regard to what presences, presencing shows itself as letting-presence. But now we must try to think this letting-presence explicitly insofar as presencing is admitted. Letting shows its character in bringing into unconcealment. To let presence means: to unconceal, to bring to openness. In unconcealing prevails a giving, the giving that gives presencing, that is, Being, in letting-presence.

- Heidegger, Being and Time

What could have motivated the distinct contemplations on a whole skeleton and the separated bones?

memento mori, originally uploaded by tempophage.

"My wife was disgusted. My daughter was fascinated."

❂

The relation of the order of the nine stages in the Nakamura version to textual sources has been interpreted variously. The order of the stages of decay in the handscroll is as follows: (0) predeath portrait; (1) newly deceased; (2) distension; (3) rupture; (4) exudation of blood; (5) putrefaction; (6) discoloration and desiccation; (7) consumption by birds and animals; (8) skeleton; and (9) disjointing.

The closest match of the order of decay in the Nakamura version is to the description of the Discourse on Mahayana Meditation and Contemplation, but with a few differences. An image of the newly deceased was inserted as the first stage of the Nakamura version, and to limit the total number to nine, the ninth stage of bones being parched to dust was omitted.

Another, more significant, difference is found in the eighth stage. According to the text, in the stage of dismemberment, "the head and hands are located in different places, and five organs are detached from the body and shrunken." The Nakamura version does not show the stage of dismemberment. Instead, it displays two different forms of bones in the eighth and ninth stages: a whole skeleton and a disjointing of the bones. Thus, the key to interpreting the divergent order of decay in the Nakamura version lies in the reason for articulating two forms of the skeleton and omitting the stage of dismemberment.

As we have noted, descriptions of the nine stages of a decaying corpse are found in many Buddhist sources. The texts vary in their ordering and description of the decomposition process, but three share an identical sequence: the Discourse on Mahayana Meditation and Contemplation, the Discourse on the Great Wisdom, and the Explanations of the Doctrines on Meditation for Enlightenment (Japanese: Shakuzen haramitsu shidai homon, Chinese: Shichan bolomi cidi famen, by Zhiyi, 568-75). The lack of consistency among the surviving documents may indicate that the order itself was not critical. While the subtitles given to each of the nine stages vary among the sources, the designations share similar meanings for each of the relevant stages, with one obvious exception.

Some sources specify one stage relating to bones, and others include two such stages: a whole skeleton and disjointed bones. For sources mentioning a single stage of bones, the texts refer to either a whole skeleton or disjointed bones. For sources that give contemplations on two stages of bones, the whole skeleton and the disjointed bones are designated as distinct objects for meditation in two sequential stages. In these sources, the stage of dismemberment is omitted to allow for the inclusion of two contemplations on different forms of bones.

What could have motivated the distinct contemplations on a whole skeleton and the separated bones?

From The Art Bulletin, The March, 2005: Behind the sensationalism: Images of a decaying corpse in Japanese Buddhist art by Fusae Kanda

Skeletal Art

From the Russian site: Юрий Шпаковский | АРТ | Рентгенографик (more after the jump):





via Neatorama

The Mütter Museum

Via the always fascinating gmt9 (-15), photographs from the Mütter Museum on the Portuguese site Lost Art > Mütter Museum:

From Lost Art

From Lost Art

From the Mütter Museum's website:

In 1858, Thomas Dent Mütter, retired Professor of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College , presented his personal collection of unique anatomic and pathological materials to The College of Physicians of Philadelphia . Our collection now boasts over 20,000 unforgettable objects. These include fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens; skeletal and dried specimens, medical instruments and apparati; anatomical and pathological models in plaster, wax, papier-mâché, and plastic; memorabilia of famous scientists and physicians; medical illustrations, photographs, prints, and portraits. In addition, we offer changing exhibits on a variety of medical and historical topics.

Our Treasures

Our one-of-a-kind treasures include:

• The plaster cast of the torso of world-famous Siamese Twins, Chang & Eng, and their conjoined livers
• Joseph Hyrtl's collection of skulls
• Preserved body of the "Soap Lady"
• Collection of 2,000 objects extracted from people's throats
• Cancerous growth removed from President Grover Cleveland
• Tallest skeleton on display in North America

On Diableries

Several years ago, a good friend gave me a book called Diablieries: La Vie Quotidenne Chez Satan a la fin du 19e Siecle. It was published by in France by Ballard in 1978 and edited by Jac Remise.

It is one of my most prized books. The images within depicting the daily life of Satan are endlessly fascinating. Every page is printed on dark glossy paper with richly textured black and white images of skeletons, demons and Satan occupying their eternal time by fishing and flirting with women, cooking up infernal cuisines, drinking, gambling and generally carrying on in delighful and humorous fashions.

From what I can gather, they were originally created in the 19th century as small tabletop dioramas by, perhaps, three enigmatic sculptors. (There is some speculation that because of the heretical nature of the sculptures and their subversive commentary on French society of the time, that the creators had no desire to be well-known.) With the advent of photography, images were made of the sculptures - as stereo-photographs and rear-projection tissues. The original sculptures appear to have been destroyed.

I have posted a few detail scans that I made. Check out the sites below for a much more comprehensive catalog of Diablieries.



From http://www.worldofstereoviews.com/diableriespage.htm

The history of these amazing tissue views is gradually coming to light following many years of almost complete ignorance as to their creators, purpose (if any!) and methods of production. Stereo World volume 30 #4 contains a good article on the classification of Diableries by Bob Schreiber - much of the research carried out in collaboration with the late Tex Treadwell.

It is now generally believed that these views were produced as social satire on the regime of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte who, as Napoleon III, was Emperor of France from 1852 to 1870. More overt lampooning of him and his government was liable to lead to a long period of imprisonment!

There are a myriad of small, almost hidden, messages within these views and work is currently in progress to reveal more information. They can, so far, be attributed to Hennetier and Habert. They were created on table-tops with small clay models that were used again and again in different poses. An idea of scale can be had from a careless view where the table legs are visible, and one view which features a real stuffed blackbird.

From Diableries: Early Visual Media:

The most popular Diableries are the "tissue" versions since they are made to view with transmitted light from behind, revealing the most wonderfull coulors and light effect similar as seen in a Vue d'Optique viewed by back-light in a peepshow box. Many non-transparent versions are found also and both are equally interesting for the serious collector!

Because of their rarity, most Diableries will be illustrated here as single images. Where possible, I will add, both, links to stereo versions & color images.

To my knowledge, only one book is devoted interely on these fascinating views, written by Jac Remise, the same author of the well known "Magie Lumineuse" illustrating the Pre-cinema.

This book mention 72 different Diableries as one complete set. Perhaps this is true, Although I feel that some of the views do not all belong to one single set. Several other views mentioned in the 139 title list could be part of the majority of views depicted in Jac Remise's wonderfull publication.

Most of the Stereo Diableries are anonymous, although 25 images depicted in the book have a signature in the plaster. The same names are occasionally also found on the diableries in the extented diablerie list wich proves their connection.

Three different names are found in the plaster of the "72" series. Hennetier (14), Habert (10), Cougny (1). I supose these names where not the creators of the Diablerie series but the sculptors who made the mouldings on demand. Cougny turns up only one time. Hennetier is mostly seen in this set and also in the other Diableries, subsequent to the number 72.

Drought, Gobi Desert

Photographer: Elaine Ling - http://www.elaineling.com/