Curiosity Shop #1

Dead things

When I first saw Polly Morgan’s Departures I fell further in love with taxidermy. There is something so dark and Victorian about the art of skinning and stuffing dead creatures. Polly makes it playful and fun. She breathes beauty into death, life into a carcass. The knowledge of impending decay stays with you. She is the saviour of animal beauty. She transforms a carcass’s life into the ever after. Creepy!

Polly Morgan - Bird with telephone

Quirky, witty, clever. Her sense of humour breathes new life (pun intended) into roadkill and farmfresh birdies...

Polly Morgan -  Black Fever

Ethereal, spooky, WOW!

LET'S LITTLE BLACK BOOK IT!

The Curiosity Shop

Welcome to my curiosity cabinet. Here I will bring to you a selection of objects and art which invoke the sentiments of the curiosity cabinet – magic, wonder and excitement. I want art and antiques to be fun, exciting, sexy and covetable.

The curiosity cabinet concept draws on the European tradition of collecting exotic objects from faraway lands and assembling them together in a contained space. This space became known as the cabinet of curiosity or wonder room (wunderkammer) where the wondrous and the bizarre interacted.

The wunderkammer acted as a theatre of the memory. Tokens of exploration provided a visual record of new worlds. A single object became a symbol for memories of far flung shores that for many Europeans seemed imaginary.

My curiosity cabinet captures that imagination. I select treasures that I would like to house in my own wonder room and share them with you.

I’ll tell you how much things cost and where to get them. My Let’s Little Black Book it! section gives hints and tips of where to find a piece of art I blog or something similar in London. I’ll even take you curiosity shop shopping!

Most importantly I will blog things that I want to own.

Let me know what you think of my Curiosity Cabinet...

The Curiosity Shopper xxx

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If you are interested in the concept of Contemporary Curiosity Cabinet's click here to read my synopsis for the Wunderkammer exhibition held at Hoxton Art Gallery this year (9th March 2012 - 12th April 2012).