Inanimus, Monsters & Chimeras of the Present

Oct8

I look above me, towards the movable hooks once used to hang the meat, and I visualize the blood and pain that these walls had to contain – sustain – for many long years. Death and pain are the instruments life has to proceed, I tell myself.

I’m standing inside Padua’s former slaughterhouse: a space specifically devised for massacre, where now animals are living a second, bizarre life thanks to Alberto Michelon’s artworks.
When I meet him, he immediately infects me with the feverish enthusiasm of someone who is lucky (and brave) enough to be following his own vocation. What comes out of his mouth must clearly be a fifth of what goes through his mind. As John Waters put it, “without obsession, life is nothing“.
Animals and taxidermy are Alberto’s obsession.

Taxidermy is traditionally employed in two main fields: hunting trophies, and didactical museum installations.
In both context, the demand for taxidermic preparations is declining. On one hand we are witnessing a drop in hunting activities, which find less and less space in European culture as opposed to ecological preoccupations and the evolution of the ethical sensitiviy towards animals. On the other hand, even great Natural History Museums already have their well-established collections and seldom acquire new specimens: often a taxidermist is only called when restoration is required on already prepared animals.

“This is why – Alberto explains – I mainly work for private customers who want to preserve their domestic pets. It is more difficult, because you have to faithfully recreate the cat or dog’s expressiveness based on their photographs; preparing a much-loved and familiar pet requires the greatest care. But I get a huge satisfaction when the job turns out well. Customers often burst into tears, they talk to the animal – when I present them with the finished work, I always step aside and leave them a bit of intimacy. It’s something that helps them coming to terms with their loss.”

What he says doesn’t surprise me: in a post on wunderkammern I associated taxidermy’s second youth (after a time in which it looked like this art had become obsolete) to the social need of reconfiguring our relationship with death.
But the reason I came here is Alberto is not just an ordinary taxidermist: he is Italy’s only real exponent of artistic taxiermy.

Until November 5, here at the ex-slaughterhouse, you can visit his exhibition Inanimus – A Contemporary Bestiary, a collection of his main works.
To a casual observer, artistic non-naturalist taxidermy could seem not fully respectful towards the animal. In realuty, most artists who use animal organic material as a medium do so just to reflect on our own relationship with other species, creating their works from ethical sources (animals who died of natural causes, collected in the wild, etc.).

Alberto too follows such professional ethics, as he began his experiment using leftovers from his workshop. “I was sorry to have to throw away pieces of skin, or specimens that wouldn’t find an arrangement“, he tells me. “It began almost like a diversion, in a very impulsive way, following a deep urge“.
He candidly confesses that he doesn’t know much about the American Rogue Taxidermy scene, nor about modern art galleries. And it’s clear that Alberto is somewhat alien to the contemporary art universe, so often haughty and pretentious: he keeps talking about instinct, about playing, but must of all – oh, the horror! – he takes the liberty of doing what no “serious” artist would ever dream of doing: he explains the message of his own works, one by one.

His installations really have much to say: rather than carrying messages, though, they are food for thought, a continuous and many-sided elaboration of the modernity, an attempt to use these animal remains as a mirror to investigate our own face.
Some of his works immediately strike me for the openness with which they take on current events: from the tragedy of migrants to GMOs, from euthanasia to the present-day fear of terrorist attacks.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other artist using taxidermy to confront the present in such a direct way.
A roe deer head covered in snake skin, wearing an orange uniform reminiscent of Islamic extremists’ prisoners, is chained to the wall. The reference is obvious: the heads of decapitated infidels are assimilated to hunting trophies.
To be honest, I find this explicit allusion to current events imagery (which, like it or not, has gained a “pop” quality) pretty unsettling, and I’m not even sure that I like it – but if something pulls the rug out from under my feet, I bless it anyways. This is what the best art is supposed to do.

Other installations are meant to illustrate Western contradictions, halfway through satire and open criticism to a capitalistic system ever harder to sustain.
A tortoise, represented as an old bejeweled lady with saggy breasts, is the emblem of a conservative society based on economic privilege: a “prehistoric” concept that, just like the reptile, has refused to evolve in any way.

A conqueror horse, fierce and rampant, exhibits a luxurious checked fur composed from several equines.
“A social climber horse: to be where he stands, he must have done away with many other horses“, Alberto tells me with a smile.

An installation shows the internal organs of a tiger, preserved in jars that are arranged following the animal’s anatomy: the eyes, tomgue and brain are placed at the extremity where the head should be, and so on. Some chimeras seem to be in the middle of a bondage session: an allusion to poaching for aphrodisiac elixirs such as the rhino horn, and to the fil rouge linking us to those massacres.

A boar, sitting on a toilet, is busy reading a magazine and searching for a pair of glass eyes to fill his empty eye sockets.
The importance of freedom of choice regarding the end of life is incarnated by two minks who hanged themselves – rather than ending up in a fur coat.
The skulls of three livestock animals are hanged like trophies, and plastic flowers come out of the hole bored by the slaughterhouse firearm (“I picked up the flowers from the graves at the cemetery, replacing them with new flowers“, Michelon tells me).

As you might have understood by now, the most interesting aspect of the Inanimus works is the neverending formal experimentation.
Every installation is extremely different from the other, and Alberto Michelon always finds new and surprising ways of using the animal matter: there are abstract paintings whose canvas is made of snake or fish skin; entomological compositions; anthropomorphic taxidermies; a crucifix entirely built by patiently gluing together bone fragments; tribal masks, phallic snakes mocking branded underwear, skeletal chandeliers, Braille texts etracted from lizard skin.

Ma gli altri tassidermisti, diciamo i “puristi”, non storcono il naso?
“Certamente alcuni non la ritengono vera tassidermia, forse pensano che io mi sia montato la testa. Non mi importa. Cosa vuoi farci? Questo progetto sta prendendo sempre più importanza, mi diverte e mi entusiasma.”

On closer inspection, there’s not a huge difference between classic and artistic taxidermy. The stuffed animals we find in natural science museums, as well as Alberto’s, are but representations, interpretations, simulachra.
Every taxidermist uses the skin, and shape, of the animal to convey a specific vision of the world; and the museum narrative (although so conventional as to be “invisible” to our eyes) is maybe no more legit than a personal perspective.

Although Alberto keeps repeating that he feels he’s a novice, still unripe artist, the Inanimus works show a very precise artistic direction. As I approach the exit, I feel I have witnessed something unique, at least in the Italian panorama. I cannot therefore back away from the ritual prosaic last question: future projects?
“I want to keep on getting better, learning, experimenting new things“, Alberto replies as his gaze wanders all around, lost in the crowd of his transfigured animals.

Inanimus – un bestiario contemporaneo
Padova, Cattedrale Ex-macello, Via Cornaro 1
Until October 17, 2017 [Extended to November 5, 2017]
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Luca Cableri, Seeker of Wonders

Feb12

Luca Cableri is a man devoured by an endless passion.
An art dealer and a collectionist, he has been studying the history of wunderkammern for decades; yet when he talks about it, his eyes still light up. Anyone who insists in searching for wonder, does so because he refuses to forget the gaze of the child — the child he was, the child we all once were.

Luca’s spectacular creation is Theatrum Mundi, a most original and atypical wunderkammer right in the middle of Arezzo’s historical city centre.
Upon crossing the gallery’s threshold, the visitor enters a puzzling space: under the beautiful frescoed vaults of the nobile palace hosting this collection, ancient and modern wonders can be admired — dinosaur skeletons and space suits, original editions of Aldrovandi’s Monstrorum historia and ritual cannibal forks, exotic taxidermies and contemporary design installations.

These “heretical” juxtapositions of objects of classic museology and references to pop culture are not in the least arbitrary, but they follow a philology that aims at showing the evolution of the concept of wonder through the centuries. If the stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling was once a true icon of astonishment (no wunderkammer was complete without a crocodile or a narwhal tusk!), a modern collector cannot ignore contemporary conjugations of wonder: that’s why on exhibit at Theatrum Mundi you can also find specimens of the Space Age or relics coming from younger arts, such as cinema.

Luca follows this aesthetics with a surrealist and somehow snarky attitude, exhibiting for instance a shamanic mask next to the one used in Jim Carrey’s The Mask.

The project Theatrum Mundi testifies that the concept of wunderkammer can be still relevant today, and it has the merit of proposing a way to update it. With his personal method of giving new life to the art of collecting and displaying curiosities, Luca is also inviting us to come up with our own.

In October I invited Luca for a talk for the Academy of Enchantment, at Giano Del Bufalo’s Mirabilia Art Gallery in Rome; and though all our evenings received a wonderful feedback, his talk was sold out in just a few hours.
Considering the interest, I thought I would ask him some questions for Bizzarro Bazar, for the benefit of those who could not attend his lecture on how to “reinvent” a wunderkammer.

Do you remember how your love for cabines of wonders started?

It all began when I was very little, my father used to take me down to the river where I would collect rocks and sticks that had unusual and almost alien shapes; then came the passion for seashells and after that, when I was in my teens, I dabbled in patchworks, cutting magazines in search for all the most bizarre images that stroke my imagination.
At the University I discovered the concept of wunderkammer and I was immediately fascinated. I studied a lot, started visiting exhibitions and museums… and so now, my job is to collect wonders.

I believe your work at Theatrum Mundi has the great merit of denying an axiom that many take for granted: the idea that wunderkammer collecting is only a subgenre of antique collecting. Do your combinations of ancient and modern pieces often upset the purists?

The gallery Theatrum Mundi in Arezzo, which I opened together with my partner Iacopo Briano, was a big “calculated gamble” in a period of economic crisis and of hardship for classic antique dealers. It was really innovative on our part to try and propose meteorites, space suits, dinosaurs, pre-Columbian masks, Egyptian sarcophagi or original movie props, and when you’re trying something new you will always be met with a bit of suspicion and criticism. Everything unknown or undermining normality looks a tad scary in the beginning. But many classic antique dealers, after turning up their noses at first, began appreciating our approach to wunderkammern. There is also an undisputed advantage in exhibiting in the same room, with all ease, a Roman bust and Batman’s original suit, a ritual New Guinea mask and a contemporary painting. The important thing is giving the objects a chance to “converse” between themselves.

Is there really an idea — a unique, precise concept — of wunderkammer? What is the element that defines e a collection as belonging to this “genre” of collecting?

The fundamental element characterizing a wunderkammer is of course wonder: the objects have to be surprising, either for their aspect, their history or their function.
Princes and high aristocracy were the first to collect all their time’s curiosities inside one room, to surprise their astonished and amazed guests.
Therefore if we consider the classic concept of wunderkammer (which evolved from XV Century kunstkammer, and went on to have its biggest fortune during the XVI Century, across all Europe), the essential charateristics was the presence of four categories. Objects of nature coming from the Indies, the Americas or from Africa were called naturalia. Imagine how astonished Europeans must have been upon seeing the first rhino or giraffe. Mirabilia, instead, were objects created by Man — think of the great jewellery artworks, in which goldsmiths created fantastic and precious figures. Exotica meant everything that came from very far away, from beyond the Pillars of Hercules: natives costumes, their artistic production. And finally there were scientifica, objects of the new science, astrolabes, globes, telescopes, automata.
In the XXI Century, these categories are still valid in order to properly define a cabinet of wonder, but I felt the need to update them. Therefore I include in my naturalia section fossils and dinosaurs, in mirabilia original movie props like Darth Vader’s mask or Russel Crowe’s gladiator armour; within the exotica, which in a globalized world like ours have lost their original connotation, find their place the meteorites; and in the scientifica I place everything related to the conquest of space, like a piece of a shuttle, or a space suit that actually travelled in the cosmos.
These are just examples, of course, everyone is free to create his personal wunderkammer following his own taste, culture and collecting disposition. The important thing, I think, is keeping in mind these four main categories, unless the whole collection ends up being just a miscellaneous set of objects.

In my experience, the more you look for wonder, the more wonder comes to you: the circumstances in which you find yourself are often bizarre and surreal. What is the latest strange thing that’s happened to you?

Years ago in Paris I bought a relic-mannequin, the Niombo of the Bwendè statuary art, a big human-like doll made of straw and tissue. I liked its bizarre shape and the tattos painted on his chest. There was a fantastic story attached to it, because it is said that these objects contain the remains of a dead shaman who, through the puppet’s arms, acts as a medium between the Gods and the people.
I placed the object in my catalogue, and some time ago a collector called me from Southern France. He said he was interested in the Niombo, on one condition: it had to have bones inside, otherwise it meant it was only a decorative gaff, created to fool gullible tourists in the Fifties.
So I took the doll to the Arezzo Hospital, in the radiology department. Among the general curiosity and hilarity we X-rayed the doll, scanning from its feet up to the head without any result… then all of a sudden, with great surprise, there was our much sought-after bone. Hooray!

Venturing into this kind of research also has, in my opinion, one further appeal, and it’s the human factor. The people you meet while chasing a particular piece. Some collectors are as eccentric as their collections! Who is the most extravagant person you have ever met?

That must surely be one American collector with a passion for minerals and fossils. One evening, at a trade fair, he invited me to his immense ranch near Tucson, Arizona, and showed me his huge collection. I was left speachless because of the vast number and the quality of the objects, this guy had virtually everything!
After dinner we sat on the porch to admire a wonderful starry sky, sipping beer. In those latitudes, out in the desert and without light pollution, the night sky seems closer and much more beautiful.
At one point he confided his forbidden dream to me: he said there was one mineral he still did not possess. So I asked him which one, and he pointed at the moon. He wanted a real piece of the moon. I therefore started a frantic research and I found out that in Eastern Europe there was a small fragment donated by an American President to an ambassador… but sadly I also discovered it was illegal to trade in lunar specimens. So I fell back on an extraordinary fragment of lunar meteor to comply with my interlocutor’s request.
He was not discouraged, on the contrary; he told me that in the following years he woud contact some retired NASA engineers to have a private rocket built that could land on the moon, collect a sample, and come back to Earth!

Regardless of the different economic resources, all collectors that we meet are just like that: eternal dreamers.
This is why I often think of my father, who used to say to me, when I was a kid: “I’m curious to find out what you’re going do when you grow up”… Well, today I can honestly say that I am proud to be a “wunderkammer man”, a seeker of the impossible and the wonderous!

Here is the official site of Theatrum Mundi.

The Academy of Enchantment

Sep12

The time has finally come to unveil the project I have been spending a good part of this year on.

Everything started with a place, a curious secret nestled in the heart of Rome, a stone’s throw away from the Circo Massimo. Very likely, my favorite haven in the whole city: the wunderkammer Mirabilia, a cabinet of wonders recreating the philosophy and taste of sixteenth-century collections, from which modern museums evolved.

Taxidermied giraffes and lions, high-profile artworks and rarities from all over the world were gathered here after many years of research and adventures by the gallery owner, Giano Del Bufalo, a young collector I previously wrote about.

This baroque studio, where beauty marries the macabre and the wonderful, has become for me a special spot in which to withdraw and to dream, especially after a hard day.
Given these premises, it was just a matter of time before the idea of a collaboration between Bizzarro Bazar and Mirabilia was born.

And now we’re getting there.
On October 9, within this gallery’s perfect setting, the Academy of Enchantment will open its doors.

What Giano and I have designed is an alternative cultural center, unprecedented in the Italian scenario and tailor-made for the lovers of the unusual.
The Academy will host a series of meetings with scientists, writers, artists and scholars who devoted their lives to the exploration of reality’s strangest facets: they range from mummification specialists to magic books researchers, from pathologists to gothic literature experts, from sex historians to some of the most original contemporary artists.

You can easily guess how much this project is close to my heart, as it represents a physical transposition of many years of work on this blog. But the privilege of planning its ‘bursting into’ the real world has been accorded only by the friendly willingness of a whole number of kindred spirits I have met over the years thanks to Bizzarro Bazar.
I was surprised and actually a bit intimidated by the enthusiasm shown by these extraordinary people, whom I hold in the highest regard: University professors, filmmakers, illusionists and collectors of oddities all warmly responded to my call for action, which can be summarized by the ambitious objective of “cultivating the vertigo of amazement”.

I address a similar appeal to this blog’s followers: spread the word, share the news and participate to the events if you can. It will be a unique occasion to listen and discuss, to meet these exceptional lecturers in person, to train your dream muscles… but above all it will be an opportunity to find each other.

This is indeed how we like to think of the Academy of Enchantment: as a frontier outpost, where the large family of wonder pioneers and enthusiasts can finally meet; where itineraries and discoveries can intersect; and from which, eventually, everyone will be able to head off towards new explorations.

In order to attain the meetings you will be requested to join the Mirabilia cultural association; on the Accademia dell’Incanto website you will soon find all about the next events and application methods.
The Accademia dell’Incanto is also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
“Keep the World Weird!”

Inferno fresco: Dante Alighieri e la cultura goth

Sep19

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

De profundis, mostra e booksigning

May12

Fra pochi giorni sarà finalmente disponibile il secondo volume della Collana Bizzarro Bazar. Intitolato De profundis, il libro esplora le suggestioni del Cimitero delle Fontanelle di Napoli portando il lettore faccia a faccia con le “capuzzelle” e il loro significato simbolico grazie alle fotografie di Carlo Vannini.

Logos Edizioni in collaborazione con Ateliers ViaDueGobbiTre, nell’ambito della manifestazione internazionale Fotografia Europea, ha organizzato una mostra fotografica che presenterà in esposizione i migliori scatti dei primi due volumi della Collana. All’evento, intitolato Keep The World Weird, ovviamente sarà presente anche il vostro affezionato Bizzarro Bazar, che aprirà le danze parlando della “meraviglia nera” e del suo potere sovversivo. L’appuntamento è per venerdì 15 maggio alle ore 19, presso l’atelier Laura Cadelo Bertrand in Via Due Gobbi, Reggio Emilia.

Per i due giorni successivi, sabato 16 maggio e domenica 17 maggio, mi troverete intento a firmare e dedicare le copie di De profundis al Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, presso lo stand Logos. E per la gioia di grandi e piccini sarà anche possibile impadronirsi di un profluvio di golosi gadget (shopper, spille, magneti, cartoline, e chi più ne ha più ne metta); tutti accessori imprescindibili per ostentare con classe il vostro orgoglio weird!

Per eventuali ulteriori aggiornamenti, ricordo che ora esiste anche la nostra pagina Facebook.

Sculture tassidermiche – III

Jan18

Concludiamo qui la nostra serie di post sulla scultura tassidermica.

Partiamo subito da una delle artiste più controverse, Katinka Simonese, conosciuta con il nome d’arte di Tinkebell. Artista provocatoria, Katinka cerca di mettere davanti ai nostri occhi i punti ciechi della nostra società moderna. Per fare un esempio, milioni di polli maschi sono uccisi ogni giorno (spesso vengono gettati con forza contro un muro del pollaio); ma se Katinka replica la stessa azione in pubblico, viene arrestata. Allo stesso modo, l’artista ha trasformato il suo stesso gatto in una borsa in pelliccia double-face che può essere rivoltata per diventare un cagnolino. Per denunciare il fatto che il nostro “amore” per i cuccioli domestici è diventato uno status symbol, un commercio bell’e buono, più che un vero affetto per gli animali.

Nella stessa lunghezza d’onda, Tinkebell ha trasformato un cagnolino in carillon, suggerendo l’idea che nella nostra società consumistica gli animali rivestano il ruolo di oggetti, e che quindi possiamo modificarli a piacere, a seconda dei nostri bisogni. Senza dubbio le sue opere portano a riflettere sul ruolo che riserviamo oggi agli animali, utilizzati come veri e propri prodotti.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNsVZx_sC1M]

Cai Guo Qiang ha esposto il suo lavoro in una mostra, intitolata I Want to Believe, al Guggenheim Museum a New York: la mostra include il suo spettacolare pezzo chiamato Head On, che mostra 90 lupi imbalsamati sospesi in un arco che rovinano collassando contro un muro di vetro.

Ma Cai Guo ha anche esposto tigri seviziate, trafitte da mille frecce, per insinuare nello spettatore quella pietà che latita nella vita di ogni giorno, mostrando queste fiere come vittime sacrificali per le quali non possiamo che sentirci colpevoli.

Simile per concetto, Claire Morgan utilizza la tassidermia in maniera squisitamente astratta. Le sue belve sono un imponente memento mori che ci ricorda che ogni nostro piacere, anche quello più estetico, deriva dalla morte di qualche altro essere.

Passiamo ora a un artista differente, che modella ibridi fantastici a partire da tessuti organici. Si tratta di Juan Cabana, che riprendendo l’antica arte dell’imbalsamazione delle chimere crea straordinari esemplari di esseri mitologici, come ad esempio le sirene. È naturale, guardando le sue opere, ripensare alle Sirene delle Fiji ospitate dai musei di Phineas Barnum.

Sempre in tema di chimere, concludiamo questo excursus fra gli artisti tassidermici con Kate Clark, scultrice degna di nota, che ibrida tecniche tassidermiche con artifici scultorici più tradizionali. Le sue opere mostrano esemplari impagliati dotati di volti umani, quasi a farci riflettere sull’intima identità che ci lega al mondo animale. Possiamo così vederci, nelle sue sculture, come prede di caccia e vittime venatorie. Per ricordare che fra noi e gli animali non c’è poi tutta questa differenza.

Per finire, vorremmo segnalarvi alcuni siti di altri artisti tassidermici che, per motivi di spazio, non abbiamo potuto trattare.

Maurizio Cattelan – artista italiano controverso ed estremo, che ha utilizzato in alcune opere esemplari tassidermici.

Julia deVille – artista che unisce l’alta moda alla fascinazione per il memento mori.

Thomas Grunfeld – creatore di chimere.

The Idiots – collettivo artistico che ibrida la tecnologia con la tassidermia.

Sculture tassidermiche – I

Dec22

In anni recenti, la tassidermia artistica (cioè non naturalistica) ha conosciuto un rinnovato interesse da parte di pubblico e critica. Come è noto, la tassidermia è l’antica arte di impagliare gli animali: della bestia viene conservata soltanto la pelle (ed eventuali unghie o corna), e a seconda delle dimensioni e della specie si seguono diversi procedimenti per ridare la forma più naturale possibile all’esemplare. La tassidermia ha conosciuto la sua fortuna con la nascita dei musei di storia naturale e, in un secondo tempo, con la diffusione nel ‘900 della caccia come sport. Ma in entrambi i casi quello che l’artista cercava di raggiungere era un risultato il più possibile vicino alla realtà, rendendo l’animale impagliato il più vivo possibile, replicando minuziosamente le pose che assume in natura, ecc. La tassidermia artistica utilizza invece le tecniche di imbalsamazione e preparazione per attingere a risultati non realistici – per creare insomma chimere, mostri e animali impossibili.

Questo tipo di tassidermia non è certo una novità: già il tassidermista tedesco Hermann Ploucquet aveva incantato i visitatori della Grande Mostra del 1851 con i suoi “animali comici”, animali impagliati in pose antropomorfe che si sfidavano in improbabili duelli. Ploucquet poteva contare fra i suoi “fan” più celebri la Regina Vittoria in persona.

Ploucquet è generalmente ritenuto la maggiore influenza per il tassidermista vittoriano Walter Potter, divenuto celebre per i suoi diorami di complessità e ricercatezza ineguagliate. Classi di scuola in cui gli studenti sono tutti coniglietti impagliati, rane imbalsamate che fanno esercizi di ginnastica (grazie a un meccanismo automatico nascosto che dona loro il movimento), cerimonie di nozze fra topolini, e altre situazioni surreali costituivano il fulcro del suo Museo delle Curiosità.

Ogni piccolo dettaglio, dai quaderni ai calamai, dai vestitini alle tazzine da tè era maniacalmente riprodotto, e ad ogni animaletto Potter regalava una diversa espressione facciale – una sfida con la quale si sarebbero dovuti confrontare tutti i tassidermisti a venire.

I diorami di Potter, per quanto complessi, sembrano comunque infantili e un tantino ingenui, soprattutto se confrontati alle opere dei moderni artisti di tassidermia creativa. Forse questo è il momento di ricordare che tutti gli artisti di cui parleremo sono propugnatori di una tassidermia “etica” e responsabile, vale a dire che per le loro composizioni utilizzano esclusivamente 1) animali trovati morti sulle strade 2) parti di scarto di macelli o di collezioni museali 3) animali domestici donati dai proprietari dopo una morte naturale. Molti di questi artisti sono attivi in programmi di protezione della natura, e collaborano spesso con le facoltà di biologia delle principali università.

Sarina Brewer, ad esempio, oltre che prendere parte a diversi progetti di storia naturale dell’Università del Minnesota, nel tempo libero si occupa anche di riabilitazione e cura degli animali selvatici feriti. Nonostante questa sua sensibilità verso gli animali, le sue doti di esperta tassidermista si esprimono spesso in modo macabro e grottesco: Sarina infatti costruisce chimere, esseri fantastici e immaginari nati dalla commistione di diverse morfologie animali.

Da più di 20 anni grifoni, arpie, gatti alati, strane e meravigliose creature prendono vita a partire da scarti di animali fra le abili mani della Brewer. Sarina crede che proprio in questo risieda la bellezza della sua arte: “io mi occupo della morte in maniera che i più reputano non convenzionale. Io non vedo un animale morto come disgustoso o offensivo. Penso che tutte le creature siano belle, nella morte così come nella vita, belle di fuori come di dentro. Il mio lavoro è un omaggio alla loro bellezza, perché quando le reincarno nelle mie opere, sto creando una nuova vita là dove prima c’era solo morte”.

Iris Schieferstein non lavora esclusivamente con la tassidermia, ma quando lo fa, i risultati sono sempre controversi e puntano il dito sul nostro concetto di realtà, di buon gusto, e sulla crudeltà esibita nel concetto di moda (un po’ come il britannico Reid Peppard di cui avevamo già parlato in questo famigerato articolo). I lavori della Schieferstein sono ibridazioni di forme, inaspettate sculture che confondono i piani di senso associando organico e meccanico.

Polly Morgan è londinese, classe 1980. Il suo lavoro è al tempo stesso disturbante e commovente: assolutamente spiazzante, persino scioccante a volte, ma sempre pervaso da uno strano e sottile senso di magia.

I suoi animali addormentati in speciali mausolei sembrano esseri fiabeschi, e ci pare di ravvedere un’evidente compassione, una vera e propria pietas nell’approccio che la Morgan adotta verso i suoi soggetti.