Comments on: Dead Animal Art

Dead Animal Art

dios — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:30:51 -0800

Still lifes of dead animals.

By: dios

dios — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:32:10 -0800

This is the homepage of her gallery in Dallas.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:33:24 -0800

I need to get one of those for my office.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:38:07 -0800

Don't worry, they're just sleeping.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:38:45 -0800

with a shovel and a blanket, i can pick up road kill off the state highway and be the next jackson pollock!

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:40:55 -0800

If you want to be the next Jackson Pollock with a dead animal, It can't be roadkill. It's got to be fresh. You're gonna need all the blood you can get.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:41:02 -0800

She was on Richard and Judy a while back.

By: dilettante

dilettante — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:44:52 -0800

Reminds me of this AskMe from a while back.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:46:07 -0800

I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

By: jonson

jonson — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:47:49 -0800

That martini glass full of squirrel looks like just the party favor for my daughter's 2nd birthday party later this year. Thank goodness I have a fair amount of lead time, I'll have to start trapping the squirrels asap!

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:53:12 -0800

What's up with the tiny chandeliers of death? *Insert obligatory 'pining for the fjords' comment here*

By: loquacious

loquacious — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:56:03 -0800

NOT ANIMIST

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:00:08 -0800

This is an elaborate metaphor for something about iraq, and when I figure out what precisely that metaphor is I am going to flag this post so hard.

By: taosbat

taosbat — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:08:11 -0800

Macabré, yet prosaic...hmmm.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:19:21 -0800

This is an elaborate metaphor for something about iraq, and when I figure out what precisely that metaphor is I am going to flag this post so hard. The animals are mankind's hopes and dreams for peace in the East (the promise of a long-overdue rest, the threat of a permanent decay). The glassware is motion captured in fire (oil, heat, the inertia of despair). The photographer is a Heisenbergian trickster God (do we watch? should we look away? are we complicit in our fascination/avoidance?). The audience is history (how shall we judge the significance of lives revealed only through artfully contrived poses?).

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:11 -0800

the smell is from global warming, of course

By: Brittanie

Brittanie — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:57 -0800

I ca only hope those animals are taxidermied beforehand.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:27:08 -0800

well, they've been mounted anyway ... who knows, a couple of them may have even liked it

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:29:13 -0800

I took a picture of a dead bird in a gutter with my cell phone yesterday. Should I be looking for investors?

By: I Foody

I Foody — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:32:13 -0800

I really love these. I think they're gorgeous.

By: jefbla

jefbla — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:43:26 -0800

These pictures are making me hungry.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:46:22 -0800

There was a (local, perhaps) artist here who made latex reproductions of roadkill he found, painted them and mounted them on street signs. It's been at least 15 years since I saw them at the Two Bells in Seattle. Couldn't in a brief search find an example online. They were a lot coarser than this but still somewhat compelling.

By: Happy Dave

Happy Dave — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:50:20 -0800

In soviet russia, animal stuffs YOU!

By: pokermonk

pokermonk — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:51:36 -0800

alright, as an english nerd with an art background (or vice versa) i'm curious... the actual pieces are sculpture not photography - granted, there's some line where the documentation of the artwork becomes an artwork itself. it's a kind of high-brow taxidermy. that said, i'm really interested in the usage of the word "still life" in the FPP. i don't think "still life" is normally applied to sculptural pieces, but it seems to be a poetic and appropriate term in this case. any other language/art dorks have input on the usage? (fully aware it could be a misidentification, but it's a misidentification i think is worth contemplating)

By: deCadmus

deCadmus — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:03:27 -0800

Life, stilled.

By: Wonderwoman

Wonderwoman — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:10:05 -0800

About three years ago I discovered that on my path to my Metro there was an electric pole that had the corpse of what was long ago a trapped bird sticking out of one it's side wire casings. the mummified little body lay flat against the pole with a giant letter "B," written to the left of it's head and the name "kelly," written to the right. The way its head and wings were frozen completly spread outit looked to me as though the animal had died trying to escape. I took several pictures and kept imagining what the birds last moments must have been like. Was it's little chest tight with struggle to the very end? Or had it reached a point of resignation? Could it feel it's life slipping away? Was it afraid? I think the fasination with seeing an animal's corps, is that it presents us with an opprotunity to sort of connect with and try to understand these creatures we share a planet with be can't communicate with.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:22:02 -0800

Reminds me a little of Nathalia Edenmont

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:26:42 -0800

Taxidermy art is such a fad. (Except that poor sod of a squirrel from Maurizio Cattelan's Bidibidobidiboo.)

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:33:47 -0800

any other language/art dorks have input on the usage? You're dead right, pokermonk - these aren't still lifes by the usual definition, but it's an apt borrowing of the term.

By: squalor

squalor — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:52:32 -0800

AoP had this sort of thing covered years ago. Reminds me of Joel-Peter Witkin.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:08:34 -0800

This would be a lot more interesting if they weren't still lifes. They can do a lot with animatronics these days.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:21:54 -0800

"Since then she has gravitated towards making still lives with the animal as subject." Just a note to the Kirsty Stubbs Gallery (representatives of the artist): The plural of still life is still lifes. And, you're not fooling me. It's obvious that the chandeliers are the subject.

By: Spire

Spire — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:05:03 -0800

"Still dead."

By: YamwotIam

YamwotIam — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:12:57 -0800

By: Penny Wise

Penny Wise — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:02:55 -0800

Spire, deCadmus... Perfectly and succinctly stated.

By: iguanapolitico

iguanapolitico — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:13:36 -0800

I took several pictures and kept imagining what the birds last moments must have been like. Was it's little chest tight with struggle to the very end? Or had it reached a point of resignation? Could it feel it's life slipping away? Was it afraid? "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself." Well, sh*t. As far as I know, D.H. Lawrence didn't really say anything about resignation or fear. :)

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 01:19:22 -0800

IRFH's comment is infinitely better when read as though Herzog was saying it.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:02:47 -0800

Eh, I'm all for sacrificing mice and other animals for research and even for individual learning, as with biology students doing vivisections/dissections. And for eating, of course. But I'm much less comfortable with killing to create art.

By: prostyle

prostyle — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 07:21:48 -0800

Yeah... jack_mo pretty much nailed it. Bidibidobidiboo works due to the inherently ridiculous nature of the juxtaposition. Jamming dead rodents into wine glasses and giving them titles like "Rest a Little on the Lap of Life" - or the absolute mind-fuck that is a dead bird perched on a phone titled "Someone on the Phone" - somehow just doesn't cut it in the whole "conceptual" department. What are these, the nightmare visages of an eight year old girl? I suppose I could see how those who would enjoy taking a wood chipper out on the weekend to destroy innocent plant life for entertainment purposes might consider this highbrow...

By: Penny Wise

Penny Wise — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:25:02 -0800

Sorry to beat a dead horse... but let me know when you get one under a bell jar. I will call him Art.