Art Gallery thoughts

Late Harvest Gallery

Nevada Museum of Art

November 20, 2014

            Ironically there was a Taxidermy Gallery at the Nevada Museum of Art the day I went to listen to Melissa Milgroms artist lecture. In this gallery they had many stuffed animals but as I had mentioned in the artist lecture paper, some of these animals were given human characteristics. The one piece that stuck out the most for me was this taxidermy antelope with a face of a human. It seriously look genuine and it was sort of freaky. The body was perfectly copied from the antelope and the face gruesomely depicted that of a man. I’m not sure if it was just the fact that the face seemed realistic that freaked me out or because the man’s face on an animal seem to just look natural. Either way it was artistically well done.

            As I progressed through the gallery, I saw this huge looking window that looked like stained glass. When I gave a closer look, it wasn’t stain glass but beautiful butterfly wings of various colors! It was honestly intriguing. The piece was called The Kingdom of the Father by Damien Hirst. Hirst uses butterfly wings in many of his pieces and the reason for that is because they embody the fragility of life but as butterflies die they retain that beauty.

            Finally the last two pieces that caught my eye were called Untitled and Geologische Vondst II (Geological Discover II). Untitled was created by Nicolas Galanin and his art consisted of a Taxidermy Wolf. Its lower have is flattened and it’s upper half is molded into a wolf ready to run. Galanin purposely did his art this way to depict the way he feels about him and his people. The bottom half represents his culture trapped by a colonizer while the upper half represents those of his people who continue to fight for their own creativity. Geologische Vondst II was created by Afke Golsteijn and Floris Bakker. Their piece is that of a taxidermy lion that looks to be cut in half. The insides of the lion has amethyst and forged iron inside. I found these pieces interesting because they don’t follow the taxidermy the way it’s supposed to be done. They put their twist into it and with their experiment, the piece came out quite well! I truly enjoyed this gallery and it just helped me see with my own eyes what Melissa Molgrim saw in Taxidermy.