Observatory presents an illustrated lecture and reading with author Amy Stewart on her New York Times Bestseller Wicked Plants; The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities. Recently named the winner of the 2010 American Horticultural Society Book Award, and “drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.”

“A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations in an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. ”

Wicked Plants will be available for purchase at the event by Word Bookstore, and copies can be purchased prior to the event on Word’s Website.

Michael Johns is a social psychologist and works as a research scientist in the NYC Department of Health. He has published numerous research articles and book chapters on a variety of topics, including Terror Management Theory. Before moving to Brooklyn, Mike was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Wyoming.

Photo: "Still from 'Stages of Decay' by Julia Solis

Presentations by Ian Ference, Tarikh Korula, and Julia Solis, followed by a discussion moderated by Alan Rapp
Date: March 25th, 2010
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

Ruins as an aesthetic category were born in the eighteenth century, and they continue to seduce and thrill the contemporary imagination. But rather than antiquity’s shattered agorae or the stripped medieval abbeys that littered the English countryside, the ruins that captivate us today are of the relatively recent past—not just the industrial era that established Western hegemony, but now an even more recent service/retail age that dominated American culture until the crash of the late 00s.

A few dedicated individuals are committed to investigating and documenting this ruinous legacy. These intrepid photographer-researchers infiltrate a variety of hidden and abandoned sites, often risking physical danger or arrest, to capture and share stirringly uncanny photographs expressing the grandeur and pathos of these majestically crumbling spaces.

On March 25th, join a panel of photographers and aficionados of the post-industrial sublime for a discussion that will explore the allure and fascination of visiting, photographing, and viewing these mysterious spaces. The evening will begin with a series of short presentations about the history and photography of The Modern Ruin. Following these presentations, moderator Alan Rapp will lead a discussion that will seek to explore the art, history, and culture of The Ruin and its depiction, from ancient examples to these modern ruins that span the abandoned lunatic’s asylum and tuberculosis wards, decrepit factory complexes and dead shopping malls. We will also probe the question of “why now,” with a special eye towards the acceleration of history which can make a ruin of sites as recent as a shopping mall, and ask if this contemporary fascination might speak to us of the twilight of our own empire.

Alan Rapp is a visual book editor and writer on the topics of architecture, photography, and design. He blogs at Critical Terrain and is currently completing his MFA in Design Criticism at School of Visual Arts.

Ian Ference has been discovering and traversing abandoned buildings for a decade and a half; sometime in the early 2000s, he decided to teach himself photography in order to capture the disappearing structures. He is particularly fascinated by insane asylums and quarantine hospitals, both for their uniquely purposed architecture and for the particular threads of history they embody. Ian’s work has been widely featured, notably in the Brooklyn Museum and the New York Daily News. He has recently begun sharing his work online in a blog, The Kingston Lounge.

Tarikh Korula is a multidisciplinary artist whose work has included composition, performance, hacking, and sculpture. His practice is a playful meditation on experimental, political, sensuous, dark, or absurd themes. For the past decade, Korula has been exploring sound through improvisation, field recording and handmade electronics. He has performed at PS1 Contemporary Art Center and his sculpture has been exhibited at the New Museum. Korula was a founding member of the New York City Independent Media Center and has written for Punk Planet and Make Magazine. Korula co-founded Uncommon Projects in 2005 and lives in New York.

Julia Solis conducts archaeological parlor games and investigates ruined urban spaces. As the founder of Dark Passage, she started the creative preservation group Ars Subterranea in 2002 with the object of staging scavenger hunts and exhibitions in unusual locations in New York. She is an officer of the Madagascar Institute and Place in History, the locations producer of the film /American Ruins/, a co-founder of Furnace Press, and recipient of a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Publications include New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City (Routledge, 2004) and Scrub Station (Koja Press, 2002).

Date:

Presented by Phantasmaphile

Although Masonic iconography is full of female representations, membership is forbidden to women. Established in 1850,The Order of the Eastern Star is a Masonic offshoot open to both men and women, although female members must have some familial affiliation to Freemasons and members do not have the same rites and privileges as Freemasonry itself. Why is it that women are forbidden entry to Freemasonry? What exactly is The Order of the Eastern Star? What role do women play in the Independent Order of Oddfellows? How does French Masonry differ in regards to women? What is Co-Freemasonry and why is it growing in popularity? Utilizing rich visual material, this presentation will outline the history of women within the various fraternal orders and will also trace their occult affiliations with Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, The Order of the Golden Dawn and other secret societies.

Susan L. Aberth is Associate Professor of Art History at Bard College and is the author of Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art.

Phantasmaphile is honored to present an evening ritual with Shaman Itzhak Beery, co-founder of the NY Shamanic Circle.

This ceremony will focus on Meeting Power Animal Spirits: The Journey to Non-Ordinary Realities

Participants will be introduced to the principles of the shamanic belief system. The workshop teaches the techniques of shamanic journeying which is used by shamans to enter non-ordinary realities. Participants will learn to travel to the other worlds to obtain personal Power animal spirits, to connect with these spirits, and to retrieve specific knowledge. This knowledge can be used in our world to heal, to settle disputes, to communicate between the living and the dead, to create abundance, and to pray for the well-being of the environment, for others and ourselves.

Accompanied by drumbeat, participants learn to journey to the animal energies and shape-shift into them, allowing each person to merge with their animal nature—a reflection of our innermost self that represent those qualities we need most in this world, but which are often hidden, or repressed.

***Please bring a pillow, towel, or cushion to sit on.

Bio

Israeli born Itzhak, was initiated into the family tradition of a powerful Quechuan Yachak from Ecuador.  He also studied with Ipupiara a Brazilian elder and Cleicha, a Peruvian curandera (healer).

Additionally, since 1994, Itzhak has studied the shamanic path and healing ways with indigenous shamans from Hawaii, Ecuador, Peru, Greenland, Native American and the United States.

He is a founding member of the NY Shamanic Circle, and the NY Annual Shamanic Gathering in Central Park.  He is a member of the Dream Change and the Society for Shamanic Practitioners.  He is the founder and publisher of the leading shamanic global resource web site www.shamanportal.org.

Itzhak has a private shamanic ceremonial healing practice in New York City (For adults, children, animals, & house cleansing) and conducts workshops for adolescents, adults, and senior citizens in Europe, Israel, Hawaii, and the US.

Itzhak also developed and facilitates a special program geared to high school students, called The Bridge.

This evening is offered in conjunction with OBSERVATORY’s current exhibition, VISION QUEST, a group show of neo-shamanic art, up through February 21st.

“Tiger and Crows, Natural History Museum, London, England.” Diane Fox

Date: Thursday, March 11
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5.00
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In 1889 Carl Akeley, working for the Milwaukee Public Museum, created the first total habitat diorama by arranging stuffed muskrats into a facsimile of their natural environment. While the originators of the diorama strove to heighten its sense of reality, many contemporary artists have used the medium’s format to comment on its artificiality or hyper reality.

This lecture will examine the work of several photographers who use the form of the natural history museum diorama to comment on the connection (or lack of connection) between the human and natural world.

Diane Fox is a Lecturer in the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where she teaches graphic design and photography. Fox received her MFA from The University of Tennessee and her BFA from Middle Tennessee State University.  Her current body of photographic work, “UnNatural History,” is composed of images shot in various natural history museums in the US and Europe. Her solo exhibits have been exhibited in the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA; Tower Fine Arts Gallery, SUNY Brockport, Brockport, NY; Gallery Stokes in Atlanta, GA; Santa Reparata Gallery, Florence Italy; Apex Gallery, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD; Sarratt Gallery, Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN; and Dom Muz Gallery, Torun, Poland among others.

The pamphlet is a simple and elegant way to bind together a group of loose pages into a book. We’ll use regular 8 ½ x 11″ paper folded in half and sewn through the fold, with a stiff paper cover. The form can be adapted to just about any use, and is excellent for a poetry chapbook, a short story or essay, or a blank journal.

We’ll go over the basic materials of paper and thread, talk about some technical issues like paper grain and imposition, and look at various types of pamphlets. Everyone will make at least one pamphlet. No prior experience is necessary. All materials will be provided. If you have special papers you would like to use, particularly for the cover, feel free to bring them.

If you would like to attend, rsvp to james_walsh@earthlink.net

Observatory presents a talk and reading with author Melissa Milgrom on her new book, “Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy.” Books will be available for purchase, and a signing will follow the talk.

From her website:
“It’s easy to dismiss taxidermy as a kitschy or morbid sideline, the realm of trophy fish and jackalopes or a throwback to the dusty diorama. Yet it is a world full of intrepid hunter-explorers, eccentric naturalists, and gifted museum artisans, all devoted to the paradoxical pursuit of creating the illusion of life.

Into this subculture of insanely passionate animal lovers ventures journalist Melissa Milgrom, whose journey stretches from the anachronistic family workshop of the last chief taxidermist for the American Museum of Natural History to the studio where an English sculptor preserves the animals for Damien Hirst’s most disturbing artworks. She wanders through Mr. Potter’s Museum of Curiosities to watch dealers vie for preserved Victorian oddities, and visits the Smithsonian’s offsite lab, where taxidermists transform zoo skins into vivacious beasts. She tags along with a Canadian bear hunter—the three-time World Taxidermy Champion—as he resurrects an extinct Irish Elk using DNA studies and Paleolithic cave art for reference; she even ultimately picks up a scalpel herself. Transformed from a curious onlooker to an empathetic participant, Milgrom takes us deep into the world of taxidermy and reveals its uncanny appeal.”

Opening: Friday, February 26; 7:00 - 10:00
Hours: Thursdays and Fridays 3-6; Saturdays and Sundays 12-6;

OBSERVATORY and Curious Expeditions’ Michelle Enemark are delighted to announce “Entomologia,” a group show of art incorporating and inspired by insects, on view from February 26th through April 4th.

“Four years of hard work in the darkness, and a month of delight in the sun - such is the Cicada’s life. We must not blame him for the noisy triumph of his song. For four years he has dug the earth with his feet, and then suddenly he is dressed in exquisite raiment, provided with wings that rival the bird’s, and bathed in heat and light. What cymbals can be loud enough to celebrate his happiness, so hardly earned, and so very, very short?” -Jean Henri Fabre

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Jennifer Angus
Joianne Bittle
Catherine Chalmers
Joanna Ebenstein
Michelle Enemark
Judith Klausner
Barrett Klein
Shanna Maurizi
Herbert Pfostl
Brian Riley
Stacey Steers
Steve Thurston
James Walsh
Lisa Wood

ENTOMOLOGIA EVENTS DURING THE RUN OF THE SHOW

Insect Safari with Catherine Chalmers
Friday, March 12, 7:30pm
A film screening of Entomologia contributing artist Catherine Chalmers’ insect shorts, “Safari” and “We Rule”. The screening will be followed by a talk about the cast of the Safari; 20 species of insects, reptiles and amphibians she raised in her SOHO studio.

Insects, Naturalist, Dioramas and World Travels
Friday, March 19, 2010, 8:00pm
A talk of insects, world travel, and art with Joianne Bittle, Entomologia contributing artist, and diorama artist for the American Museum of Natural History.

Curiosity and Horror: Transgenics, Cybernetics, and Evolution
Saturday, April 3, 2010, 8:00pm
An illustrated lecture by Entomologia contributing artist Shanna Maurizi on the nether regions of genetic engineering and transgenics, molecular biology, and military cybernetics.
ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Michelle Enemark is the creator of Curious Expeditions, a site devoted to traveling and exhuming the extraordinary past. Curious Expeditions was named a finalist for best travel blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards and received a 2009 Cliopatria Award. A motion graphics artist by trade, visual artist by training, and historian and naturalist by self appointment, Michelle aims to show the forgotten bits of the world, be they lost pieces of history, forgotten museums, or elements of the natural world that have been ignored or overlooked.

ADDITIONAL CURATION:
Jessica Oreck works as an animal keeper and docent at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. When not at the museum, Jessica spends her time inventing new ways to create a sense of wonder in the world. Jessica just finished her first feature documentary, “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.” She is currently in production on several animated science shows, building her own museum exhibition, and pre-production for her next feature film, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga.

Date: Thursday, March 4
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5.00

“Death Become Them, Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious,” journalist/author Alix Strauss will discuss in an illustrated lecture based on her research for her book “Death Becomes Them,” the phenomenon and history of suicide and the seductive appeal of celebrity suicide in Western culture. Over the course of her lecture, she will present fascinating details leading up to the last days of icons of celebrity suicide such as Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Spalding Gray, Kurt Cobain, Diane Arbus, and Vincent van Gogh. After reading from selected passages, she will discuss the methodology, pathology, and psychology of these luminaries, with an eye towards understanding why such brilliant people all chose this particular end. She will also touch on society’s needs to “mass mourn,” the cultural phenomenon of funerals, and the role that mental illness and addiction play in suicide.

Alix Strauss is author of Death Become Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious.” She also a media savvy social satirist, and featured lifestyle and trend writer. She is the author of the award winning short story collection, The Joy of Funerals (St. Martin’s Press), and the forthcoming novel, Based Upon Availability, June of 2010 (Harper Collins).