Curio Cabinet

It's Flashback Friday and Rainforest Day! Enjoy this jungle-themed favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Isn't this backseat snuggle-fest the most adorable thing ever? Though Jo-Anne McArthur's Pikin and Appolinaire didn't win the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition's grand prize, the shot certainly stole the People's Choice. It shows Pikin, a young lowland gorilla, in the arms of her devoted caretaker, Appolinaire Ndohoudou. McArthur, a wildlife photographer who was doing volunteer work, witnessed Pikin's transportation across Cameroon by Ape Action Africa—a nonprofit determined to protect great apes. During the car ride, Pikin awoke despite being sedated—and unexpectedly reached out for a hug. Gentle-hearted Pikin had been previously rescued from poachers by Ape Action Africa. During her recuperation, she grew deeply attached to Ndohoudou, even becoming jealous when other apes attempted to hug him. Sadly, the photo is a sensitive subject for Ndohoudou; not long after Pikin reached her destination, she suffered an unexpected mortal injury. "She really loved me and I loved her," said Ndohoudou. "I was her father, I belonged to her." He can take comfort knowing Pikin's final days were spent with family.
 

Below: other Wildlife Photographer of the Year submissions that won other categories: The night raider by Marcio Cabral; Children of the rainforest by Charlie Hamilton James; and Roller rider by Lakshitha Karunarathna.
 

Image credit & copyright: Jo-Anne McArthur / Marcio Cabral / Charlie Hamilton James / Lakshitha Karunarathna/Natural History Museum
 

It's Flashback Friday and Rainforest Day! Enjoy this jungle-themed favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Title: Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)
Artist: Henri Rousseau (1844-1910)
Created: 1891
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 51.125 x 63.75 in (130 x 162 cm)
Current location: National Gallery, London, England
 

Henri Rousseau's jungle scenes were as wild as his imagination. The artist never set foot outside France, but that didn't stop him from painting exotic locales, as in Tiger in a Tropical Storm. For the scene's tropical flora and its titular subject, Rousseau drew inspiration from the Paris botanical garden, a taxidermied tiger, and the work of artists like Eugène Delacroix and William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The artist didn't seriously take up painting until his early 40s and hoped Tiger in a Tropical Storm would be his big break. But the prestigious French Academy rejected it, calling the style "childish" and primitive. Rousseau exhibited the piece nonetheless at the unjuried Salon des Indépendants, where intrigued art critics couldn't help but take note. Despite its fantastical and mismatched elements, the immersive image is undeniably engaging. The diagonal raindrops, wind-blown greenery, and crouched tiger all direct the viewer's gaze to the right, where an unseen prey is about to become dinner. Through this, Rousseau forces us to join in on the imagination game as we attempt to visualize who the tiger is about to attack. Perhaps one of those naysaying Academy conservatives!

Marie Antoinette's elaborate rococo fashion would look lavish on anybody, but for photographer Fabiola Jean-Louis, placing certain bodies in the dresses opens new dialogues on 18th-century history. For her series Rewriting History: Paper Gowns and Photographs, Jean-Louis placed African-American women in painted paper gowns, made to look like expensive tailored outfits, and posed them in stately positions befitting portraits of European royalty. Beyond the dresses lending voluminous, painterly-qualities to the images, many of the photos in the series also feature unmistakeable iconography of colonialism and slavery. The above image, entitled Marie Antoinette is Dead, features black dolls and voodoo trinkets in what would have been fetishized exoticism of African cultures. "The series speaks to the shocking treatment of Blacks throughout history and the trauma inflicted on their bodies as juxtaposed with the abstract idea of black freedom," Jean-Louis once wrote. If there is any kind of silver lining to these troubling images, it is that Jean-Louis is both recognizing a traumatic past inflicted on black bodies, and the idea that a future where colonialist narratives do not control the fates of every race, gender, religion, etc. is a hopeful one.

 

Below: more images from Fabiola Jean-Louis' Rewriting History: Paper Gowns and Photographs, including Madame Leroy, They'll Say We Enjoyed It, and Madame Beauvoir's Painting.
 

Image credit & copyright: Fabiola Jean-Louis
 

Title: Marie's Ball
Artist: Bradley Theodore
Created: 2015
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 57.1 x 80.3 in (145 x 204 cm)
 

Who needs a masquerade ball when artist Bradley Theodore can whip up a ghostly royal visage with each stroke of his paintbrush? The New York artist—by way of Turks and Caicos, France, and Japan, to name a few of his wanderlust locales—has made a name for himself in the last few years for his otherworldly twists on pop art celebrity portraiture. Marie's Ball is one of a handful of depictions Theodore has painted of the 18th-century French Queen. As opposed to portraits of Antoinette in her own time, which would have emphasized her femininity, wealth, and beauty, Theodore uses a bright Caribbean-influenced palette of colors for his eyeless subjects, all of which are thrown together against a stark black background. The results of his style give off a sense of cadaverous mortality to celebrities usually painted in more flattering lights. But Theodore's style is less influenced by cynicism than one might think. "My work is about looking deeper into individuals, which allows you to look deeper into yourself," he once said. If Theodore's stylistic choices are any indication, we might need to stay away from the cake at this party—we heard it's to die for.

 

Below: two more of Theodore's Marie Antoinette paintings, and one Marie On The Way To The Ball.
 

Image credit & copyright: Bradley Theodore
 

In April of 2010, Jennifer Merendino and her husband Angelo received the worst news of their lives. Jennifer was supposed to be free of the breast cancer that shook the first year of her marriage, yet she was informed that the disease had metastasized to her liver and bone. Consumed with grief and frustration, Angelo began to photograph their daily lives, hoping that the photos would show friends and family the immense work it took to survive cancer treatments. Encouraged to share the images even further, Angelo began a photo blog entitled The Battle We Didn't Choose, which chronicled his wife's struggles with breast cancer from the early to late stages, as the illness and pain drastically changed Jennifer's body and daily realities. Many people have reached out to Angelo, telling him Jennifer's story has given them the courage to get mammograms or go out without wearing a headscarf to hide hair loss from chemotherapy. Jennifer lost her battle with breast cancer in December of 2011, though this Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we're thankful for her heroic efforts to show the real-life struggles breast cancer patients face on a daily basis.
 

Below: more images from the Merendino's The Battle We Didn't Choose project.
 

Image credit & copyright: Angelo Merendino
 

Title: Peter Max Clocks
Artist: Peter Max (b. 1937)
Created: 1968
Medium: ink on paper
 

It's time to go on a far out trip! The above psychedelic themed ad features a series of clocks designed by Peter Max for General Electric in 1968—including two called Flower Girl and Wow Now. Born this week in 1937, Max was already an established artist in the New York scene by the time of the GE advertisement, and his paintings featured bright splashes of color that captured the spirit of the decade. In addition to General Electric, Max's work also caught the eye of 7 Up, which commissioned him to help position the soft drink as an "alternative" to Coca Cola through the "Uncola" advertising campaign. At the core of the 7 Up and other psychedelic themed advertising was the desire to connect with a generation that celebrated individualism over conformity. Savvy companies figured out how to get consumers to express their uniqueness through their pocketbooks, and more specifically, through their choice in jeans, home appliances, and even bars of soap. The period's color schemes and designs may be dated now, but the strategy underlying the ads certainly hasn't gone anywhere!
 

Below: more psychedelic themed ads, including ones for shirts, jeans, and soap.
 

Image credit & copyright: General Electric, The May Co., Levi's, Clearasil, Wrangler
 

When and how did Caravaggio get his hands on a camera? Photographer Christy Lee Rogers has recently thrown critics for a loop with her ethereal Muses series, utilizing underwater photography to mimic the grandiosity of old Baroque paintings. Rhapsody, shown above, depicts a tangle of elegantly-styled bodies submerged underwater at night, capturing the beauty and tragedy of the human experience with dramatic choreography, bold colors, and refracted light—no pigments involved. Rogers, who just yesterday finished her Underwater exhibition in Mexico City, created these aquatic pieces as a response to undisclosed personal losses. "These final images represent a soft and peaceful place that I imagine exists, where you can be free to let go and experience the beauty surrounding you," she said. Whether or not Roger's haven is a real space, her photos certainly inspire it within our minds.
 

Below: more photos from Roger's Muses, including: A Dream Dreamed in the Presence of Reason (2018), Liquid State (2018), and Our Hopes and Expectations (2018).
 

Image credit & copyright: Christy Lee Rogers
 

Title: images from The Bottom of the Sea
Artist: Ed Emberley (b. 1931)
Created: 1968
 

Light blue, ochre, and black: these were the only colors Ed Emberley used to illustrate the 1968 book The Bottom of the Sea. "You have to be clever to make [it] look good," the artist, born October 19, 1931, said of the undertaking. And clever he is—though he hardly considers himself an "artist." Rather, Emberley sees himself as someone who makes drawing for kids—and lots of them. Since 1960, he has illustrated over 100 books including The Bottom of the Sea, a beginner's look at oceanography written by Augusta Goldin. The minimal look of Sea is just one of Emberley's many approaches; he has built an impressive portfolio by being a chameleon, mastering a multitude of styles ranging from graphic woodcuts to intricate pencil drawings. What remains constant is his impeccable eye for good design, and the care he puts into making each piece unique. In his words: "A parent can feed a child anything they want… but part of your responsibility is to give them good food. Part of my responsibility is to give them the best that I can. You give your very best to children."
 

Below: a few images highlighting Emberley's range, including a tutorial from one of his iconic Drawing how-to books; a woodcut print; an illustration from 1962's Mommies Are for Loving; the cover for Drummer Hoff, which won the 1967 Caldecott Medal.
 

Image credit & copyright: EMBR Group
 

Title: Aspiration
Artist: Paul Jordan-Smith "Pavel Jerdanowitch" (1885-1971)
Created: 1924
Current location: University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
 

Oh, we're picking up serious hints of Gauguin from this piece—just kidding! American literary scholar Paul Jordan-Smith, aka Pavel Jerdanowitch, created this piece of—ahem—art in 1924, after modern art critics lambasted his wife for her realist landscapes and portraits. Jordan-Smith, in an effort to prove the art world had totally lost its bearings, and without ever painting seriously in his life, created a series of clumsy works that caught the eye of critic Parisian critic, Le Comte Chabrier, who excitedly reached out to Jordan-Smith's avant-garde Russian persona, Pavel Jerdanowitch. These garish paintings, like Aspiration and the jarringly-named Exaltation (Yes We Have No Bananas), obliged early 20th-century critics' exotic fetishization of non-Western cultures. For over two years, Jordan-Smith paraded as Jerdanowitch, touting the nonsensical and substanceless Disumbrationism movement, until he grew weary of the charade and outed himself to the Los Angeles Times in 1927. But, in an ironic manner, Jordan-Smith showed himself anti-art in the vein of Marcel Duchamp—creating something captivating out of disgust for the commercial art world, proving yet again that the definition of "art" remains an inexhaustible source of migraines.
 

Below: Exaltation (Yes We Have No Bananas), the offensive painting that launched Pavel Jerdanowitch's career as an artist in 1924.
 

Image credit & copyright: Paul Jordan-Smith II. Courtesy of the Paul Jordan-Smith papers, Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
 

Red Bull didn't give Felix Baumgartner wings, but it sure came close. On the morning of October 14, 2012, the energy drink manufacturer had Baumgartner enter a helium-filled air balloon and ascend 128,100 feet into the sky, in an attempt to make him the first person to shatter the speed of sound in freefall. Millions watched as the daredevil leapt from the balloon's platform in a pressurized suit, and accelerated to 834.4 miles per hour, breaking the sound barrier in the process (767 miles per hour). But not everything went as planned. In the course of free falling for 4:22 minutes, Baumgartner grew dizzy and began spinning, slowly at first, before spiraling out of control. "I didn't feel [the] sonic boom because I was so busy just trying to stabilize myself," the skydiver said, "I was so fast I could have overtaken certain bullets!" Luckily, he managed to regain his bearings in the knick of time and pulled the cord for his parachute, which floated him safely down to earth and gave new meaning to taking the bull by the horns!
 

Image credit & copyright: Brian Nevins/Red Bull Content Pool