Art Lies, Volume 11, June-September 1996 Page: 32
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: ArtLies and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
ming until December 1979. By
then it had held twenty-three exhi-
bitions, from Ceramic Puzzles by
Beverly Toyu, to What's behind the
gray drawer? by Lynn Hershman,
to Three Works by Robert Mother-
well. However it is its collection
that differentiates the Manitoba
Museum of Finds Art from most
other alternative art spaces that
flourished in the seventies. The
collection consists in odds and
ends that can be grouped in three
main categories: objects made by
artists - including but not exclu-
sively, paintings and drawings;
finds - anything its members
deemed appropriate; and objects
related to the Moose - to keep in
line with the 'Manitoba' name and
as a nod to Bo Winkle. Art Of This
Century offered a large and most
interesting selection from the col-
lection, including a piece of floated
wood, a baseball cap, pairs of
weird glasses, a U.S. flag/ plastic
bag and of course several incar-
nations of the moose figure.
When it lost its space in 1979,
the Museum became virtual,
expanding its membership and
promoting an assortment of other
activities, like the Bruce Conner
look-alike contest and bake sale
or the annual Chole Footstar
Memorial Picnics, organized to
bring the disparate group of mem-
bers together. The Members'
Birthday Calendar "was instituted
as a gift to members who attended
the picnic in 1987. It continues in
the spirit of a museum without
walls... Most recently, the
museum has only existed in the
mind of its members." (5)
David Wilson, founder of the
Museum of Jurassic Technology,
defines it as "a small natural his-tory museum with an emphasis on
curiosities and technological inno-
vations." Reading from its
brochure, which was available at
Art Of This Century, one would
think that it serves the same func-
tion as any traditional museum.
"The Museum of Jurassic Technol-
ogy in Los Angeles, California is
an educational institution dedi-
cated to the advancement of
knowledge and the public appreci-
ation of the Lower Jurassic.
Like a coat of two colors, the
museum serves dual functions.
On the one hand the museum pro-
vides the academic community
with a specialized repository of
relics and artifacts from the Lower
Jurassic, with an emphasis on
those that demonstrate unusual or
curious technological qualities.
On the other hand the museum
serves the general public by pro-
viding a hands-on experience of
'life in the Jurassic."' (6)
However one soon realizes
that there is more here than meet
the eye. As Marcia Tucker
remarked, '"The Museum affords
this marvelous field for projection
and transference. It's like a
museum, a critique of museums,
and a celebration of museums - all
rolled into one." (7)
Even though such complexity
can be difficult to convey through
a mere documentation of exhibits,
AOTC presented some interesting
fragments of the Museum's
incredible realizations, considered
by Marcia Tucker to be "one of the
great artistic treasures of the
Western World." (8)
Art Of This Century presented
a selection documenting several
of the Museum of Jurassic Tech-
nology's exhibits, in the form ofcolor photographs mounted
directly on the wall, with accompa-
nying texts. Most of the pho-
tographs were part of an exhibit
called Tell the Bees, Beliefs,
Knowledge and Hypersymbolic
Cognition, which seemed to docu-
ment what has come to be called
superstitious beliefs. A pair of wax
hands holding a small bird with the
caption "Holding a dying creature
during childhood will leave the
offender with trembling hands for
life." Or a pair of dead mice on a
piece of toast, next to a pie in an
ornate platter, all part of an exhibit
titled Mouse Curses, with the
explanation: "Bed wetting or gen-
eral incontinence of urine can be
controlled by eating mice on toast,
fur and all" and "Mouse pie, when
eaten with regularity serves as a
remedy for children who stammer."
Another photograph showed a
wall displaying a grouping of
mounted horns and antlers, all but
one in pairs. The solitary horn, as
the label explains, is the Horn of
Mary Davis of Sanghall. It goes
on quoting an early visitor to the
Museum Tradescantianum, "the
horn was blackish in colour, not
very thick or hard, but well propor-
tioned." On the adjacent wall of
the MJT is a vitrine containing a
preserved stink ant, Megalopon-
era foeteus, its mandibles grasp-
ing the stalk of a plastic fern.
AOTC had a photograph of the
ant, clearly showing a protuber-
ance sprouting from the ant's
head. The label told us that this
Cameroon ant had become
infected by a microscopic spore
from a fungus of the genus
Tomentella. The spore, after fixing
itself in the ant's brain, started to
grow, affecting the ant's behavior.ArtLiee 11 32 -- June - September 1996
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Calledare, Donald. Art Lies, Volume 11, June-September 1996, periodical, June 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228042/m1/32/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .