Museum of Jurassic Technology

"This place is creepy as hell," I overheard a student declare in the dark of the museum. My own impressions carried in the same direction. It was a place where weird, strange, macabre art and science history came to lay in it's final resting place, taxidermied, displayed under vintage glass bells and antiquated microscopes, and nestled in spaces carved into the shadows by weakly powered spot lights. It was a circus, meets a funeral parlor, meets an art museum, meets the History Channel, meets Maggie Taylor, meets me. I encourage anyone reading this post to visit this museum once in your life. The exhibits are unique and fascinating and I doubt you will ever see them in another location on earth. But I can't cover the entire museum. No. You'll have to run down to Culver City, Ca and discover your own delicious gross all by yourself.

One of my favorite exhibits was the Floral Stereoradiographs of Albert G. Richards. Please feel free to peruse his shots courtesy of the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

"Rose", Albert G. Richards

Just look at that. Take a breath. I know I did. I saw this and felt like I was looking at something divine and celestial. The radial undulating glowing folds mesmerize me.

The delicate texture is reminiscent of old Flemish paintings, like Van Eyck, except instead of visible light to describe a flower, Richards uses, electromagnetic waves.

It forces the viewer to see an everyday object through different eyes. Something as ordinary as a rose blossom transforms into an angelic explosion.

I Don't Know What Makes A Good Photograph.

Photography VS. Art History

In art history, there is no bad art. There is simply art. It's like therapy. There are no bad feelings, just feelings. You don't judge them. You just process them. But you know when something in art seems distasteful to you.
So, I'm confused when it comes to photography. don't know much about photography. I have no idea what makes a good photograph, a good photograph. I have no idea what makes a bad photograph, a bad photograph. Sometimes I look at a photo and it evokes thoughts and feelings inside of me, it sends me into a silent conversation with myself, or it leaves me completely confused. In my book, if art does any of that, it's successful.

My old art history teacher, Ms. D, used to say to the class, (and I'm sure this isn't verbatim, but somewhere in the ballpark), "If you are confused by the piece, or if it doesn't register in your mind as being good art, or even art at all, stop and ask yourself why. Is it because it is challenging what your idea is about art?"

Marcel Duchamp, 1917, " Fountain"

So after taking contemporary art history, after spending 3 hours talking about Duchamp and his urinal and "ready mades", after the shit the performance artists got away with in the 60's, and after Jackson Pollock, "Jack the Dripper," inspired articles in both Life and Time magazines, what can't pass for art? What do you have left after you include everything?

Jackson Pollock, "Jack the Dripper"

At our last class meeting, Mrs. D. said something to this effect:

"I hope I have helped you look at art differently. I hope that when you look at something that doesn't make sense to to you, you don't immediately judge it. Ask yourself, what is it about the piece that doesn't meet your standards. And if it doesn't meet your standards, ask yourself if it doesn't meet your standards because it is challenging your idea of what art is supposed to be. You don't have to like it, but don't say that it's not art. But if you do, don't tell anyone you took my class."

Thanks, Mrs. D.

So, for those 3 of you that have clicked on my blog and got to the end of this post, I'm asking you to give me a little input, on what makes a good photograph. And if you don't know, just tell me what you THINK makes a good photograph.

Jack the Dripper Biography
Marcel Duchamp

"Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany."

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, collage, mixed media, 1919-1920 (Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin)

This photomontage was made between 1919 to 1920. In this year, Germany was experiencing tremendous political upheaval after WWI. Violent conflict broke out between Spartacists, the far left-wing communists, and the Freikorp. The Freikorp, (translated to free copse), was a paramilitary group encouraged by members of the government to oppress the German Revolution, the Marxist Spartacist League, the Bavarian Soviet Republic. In addition, they attacked certain political figures, such as Karl Liebnecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were arrested and killed January 15, 1919.

Hoch uses readily available and current images from newspapers and magazines to reconstruct a story told from her perspective: a total fragmentation of government and a country. The title, "Cut with the Kitchen Knife" appropriately describes the way in which her media is processed. In the same instance, it is also a allegory for the schism running through Germany at the time. Being the kitchen knife, a domestic tool, the title hints at the themes of feminism woven into the image. Most of the powerful and popular male figures are emasculinated, infantized, or satirized. Hoch uses the portrait of Kathe Kollwitz, a prominent female German expressionist, as the focal point of the piece, around which gears and machines of industry move and rotate. Countries that give women the right to vote are highlighted in a map of western Europe, which is pasted to the lower right corner of the photo montage. Instead of signing the piece, Hoch places a portrait of herself on this map, identifying her values.

View a beautifully annotated video from SmartHistory about this piece.