The Velaslavasay Panorama
1122 W 24th St
213.746.2166
This event has passed.
Art
Anatomical Venuses, the Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig: a Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum
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"La Specola" (Museo di Storia Naturale): Florence, Italy. Photo courtesy Joanna Ebenstein / Morbid Anatomy.
- When
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Thursday Feb 9 (8pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$10
- Links
“New York-based historian, photographer, and designer Joanna Ebenstein is the mastermind behind Morbid Anatomy, a blog that merges the seemingly disparate fields of art and science through a unique examination of death and medicine. As part of her research, Ebenstein has traveled the world in order to collect images for Anatomical Theatre: Depictions of the Body, Disease, and Death in Medical Museums of the Western World. Her truly bizarre, creepy, but no less fascinating series of photos includes depictions of 18th century wax models from Italy, 19th century anatomical preparations from the Netherlands, original specimens from the Hunterian Museum in London, and pathological models from the Mütter Museum in Pennsylvania. Ebenstein brings her eponymous "morbid anatomy" out west for a special illustrated lecture at the Velaslavasay Panorama: Anatomical Venuses, the Slashed Beauty, and Fetuses Dancing a Jig: a Journey into the Curious World of the Medical Museum.”
Tanja M. Laden, Flavorpill
Note:
See pictures from Joanna Ebenstein's Anatomical Theater and the Secret Museum.
The Velaslavasay Panorama welcomes photographer and researcher Joanna Ebenstein, who has traveled the world seeking out the most fascinating, curious, and overlooked medical collections, backstage and front, private and public. In the process, she has amassed not only an astounding catalogue of images, but also familiarized herself the fascinating history behind these collections and the enigmatic and alluring artifacts they house. Abounding with images and insight, Ms. Ebenstein's lecture will introduce you to the Medical Museum and its curious denizens, from the Anatomical Venus 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. Ebenstein will discuss the history of medical modeling, survey the great artists of the genre, and examine the other death-related arts and amusements which made up the cultural landscape at the time that these objects were originally created, collected, and exhibited.
