Curio Cabinet / Photo Curio

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Harlem Globetrotters’ Day, enjoy these sports-centric curios.
 
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Oscar Robertson. It's been over six decades since this gravity-defying rebound by Robertson. The unforgettable image was taken during Cincinnati's 1959 regional elimination game against Kansas State. Though Cincinnati ended up winning the game 85-75, they were knocked out of the tournament in the Final Four by California, the overall winner that year. But Robertson was just getting started. He went on to become a 12-time NBA All-Star and the NBA player with the most career triple doubles—typically double-digit totals in points, rebounds, and assists in a game—at an unmatched 181 (though Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook is looking to surpass his single-season record this year). His impression on the NCAA tournament is also a lasting one; in 1988, the prestigious trophy awarded to the NCAA Division I Player of the Year was renamed the Oscar Robertson Trophy. The Big Dance just wouldn't be the same without the Big O!
 
Image credit & copyright: AP
 

It's Flashback Friday AND New Year’s Eve! While looking into the future, enjoy these curios featuring images and stories from New Years past.
 
Title: Incense Burner in the Shape of a Rooster
Artist: unknown
Created: ca. 1750
Medium: cloisonné enamel on copper
Dimensions: 7.625 in tall (19.4 cm)
Current location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
 
Here's a symbol of good fortune to last the whole year. This Qing dynasty-era rooster relic burns incense and looks good doing it. Roosters have long been a popular subject for Chinese decorative motifs. As an incense burner, it was the perfect relic for 2017, the year of the fire rooster. Set in copper and painted with golden and vibrant enamel hues, the bird stands dignified at just over seven inches tall. The wings are detachable, allowing incense to be housed discreetly inside the hollow body. Also, notice the small gaps under the feathers on the rooster's back. These openings allow for the fragrant incense scents to escape gradually. No wonder they call fire roosters "extra resourceful."

It's Flashback Friday! On this Christmas Eve, enjoy these curios about one of the world’s most observed winter holidays.
 
An exercise in gratefulness. Looking at this image makes it hard to stay upset about what gifts we didn't get for the holidays. Through the lens of photographer Russell Lee, we take a trip back to an Iowan farm 80 years ago. Lee was traveling across the Midwest capturing everyday scenes of the Great Depression when he met tenant farmer Earl Pauley, who invited the out-of-towner to his home for Christmas. This image of the Pauley children's Christmas dinner conveys the humble possession the family managed to get by with—including a home built by the farmer himself using plywood and cardboard for insulation. Notice the lack of windows in the room; Pauley purposely avoided them to best withstand strong Midwestern winds. Also homemade were the children's clothing, with the youngest girl's dress likely made using a patterned flour sack. Still, the kids seem contently engrossed in the task of devouring the potatoes, cabbage, and pie on the table. The family was happy with the only "gifts" exchanged that year: opening their home to a visitor, and enjoying good eats with loved ones. Priceless even today.

It's Flashback Friday, and the first official day of winter is quickly approaching! Enjoy these cold-weather curios.
 
This Viking's bay has aged beautifully. Maurizio De Rosa captured the approaching fog over Reine in Norway's Lofoten Islands, as a fisherman's boat hurries back before a rainstorm. Home to Viking villages in 500 A.D., the islands are now characterized by quaint fishing towns, dramatic mountain peaks, and beautiful northern lights. Though the islands lie far above the Arctic Circle, residents experience higher temperatures than most locations at similar latitudes, thanks to the warm Gulf Stream. The far-north location also means an extreme relationship with the sun: it stays above the horizon for two months during the summer, and completely disappears from view for a month in the winter. These fishermen have good reason to hurry home, as strong winds can send snow from the nearby peaks avalanching into the bay. The combination of long summer days, high winds, and picturesque backdrops is turning this area into something quite unexpected: one the hottest surfing destinations in the world. We wonder what the Vikings would have made of that!
 
Image credit & copyright: Maurizio De Rosa
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Dewey Decimal System Day, enjoy these curios celebrating books, authors, and literature.
 
Getting lost in the pages of a book takes on a whole new meaning with Cara Barer's photography and sculptures. The above image entitled Buddha is the result of a long process of rediscovering new uses for old books. Barer has said that her original idea came from a time when she was getting rid of an old Windows 95 manual; instead of tossing it in the trash, she submerged it in the bathtub, creating warped and wild shapes out of the flat pages. Since then, Barer has scavenged for texts at Half Price Books stores and in abandoned houses; she's even been given flood-damaged materials by friends who lived through Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Once her materials are gathered, Barer paints on some of the pages before manipulating them into circular sculptures and photographing the final result. Besides becoming stunning, upcycled wreaths, the works help Barer process the anxiety she feels about physical texts becoming increasingly replaced by digital information. We're just hoping some of these new, vibrant works of art retain their musty-vanilla, old book smell!
 

Below: more of Barer's book art: Kashmir and Coloring Book 2.
 

Image credit & copyright: Cara Barer, Klompching Gallery
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of International Sweater Vestival, a day meant to celebrate the warmest of sleeveless clothing items, enjoy these fashion-themed curios.
 
Fashion forward? In 1968, the organizers of the Clothing for the Emancipated Man fashion show might have wished they could fast-forward through any recollection of it. To the right of the model in the photo is the sign announcing the partnership between designer Michael La Mendola and Hess department stores, a Pennsylvania-based company that built a reputation on carrying luxury brands. While some of Mendola's outfits could be said to predict British punk styles of the '70s with big prints and kilts, others—like this psychedelic, low-cut jumper—look a little outlandish in retrospective. Just because La Mendola's clothing didn't flatter this model didn't mean his brand was unsuccessful; the women's wear did become popular with movie stars like Elizabeth Taylor. Hey, if the men could be emancipated from stifling expectations, why couldn't the clothes be freed too?

 

Below: a few more shots from the Emancipated Man show.
 

Image credit & copyright: Associated Press
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Native American Heritage Day, enjoy these curios about Native American history, ingenuity, and expression.
 
Even a strong warrior can't stop the march of time. Early 20th-century photographer Edward Curtis snapped this simple yet elegant view of a Sioux warrior in traditional garb, taking a break with his horse at a South Dakota oasis. Curtis wanted to capture Native American traditions before elders passed away and children were forcefully assimilated into white American culture. He put this image to good use, including it in a portfolio he brought to banker J. P. Morgan in 1906 to ask for funding. With the financier's backing, as well as the support of Theodore Roosevelt, Curtis took 40,000 images of 80 Native American tribes over the 24 years. Curtis' 20-volume book, The North American Indian, is far from perfect: not all Native American tribes were comfortable with being recorded, and he altered some of his images to make them more palatable to a Caucasian audience. Yet he was so passionate about the project he continued to photograph even when funding dried up and readers lost interest in his subjects. Sixty-five years after his death, his book remains a testament to the original inhabitants of this land.

Below: two members of the Blackfoot tribe, Little Plume and his son Yellow Kidney, sitting inside a lodge. The first image is an early print, while the second was actually published. Because Curtis wanted to portray his subjects as untouched by modernity, he removed the clock that originally appeared on the ground between Little Plume and his son.

 

Image credit & copyright: Library of Congress
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Thanksgiving, this week’s curios are all about food.
 
There's more than mold growing inside this fridge! 26-year-old Russian photographer Ellen Sheidlin is no stranger to the surreal, and her bizarre-yet-playful pictures have recently blown up on Instagram. In many of Sheidlin's photos, her physical body melds into her surroundings. Such is the case in the photo above, in which Sheidlin poses just behind a miniature refrigerator full of fruits and veggies carved to resemble human organs. The lungs are made of cauliflower with pomegranate seeds, the spine from grapes, intestines from bananas, and the ribcage from a carved melon. Although Sheidlin does use some digital manipulation to create the surreal effects in her photos, she prefers to use practical effects, such as paintings, sculptures, or in this case, carved vegetables, whenever possible. Altered or not, her photos clearly cause her audience to go bananas with glee!
 

Below: more photos from Sheidlin in which her body fades into her surroundings.
 

Image credit & copyright: Ellen Sheidlin
 

It's Flashback Friday! The popular Chicken Soup for the Soul book series began on this day in 1993. In honor of Chicken Soup for the Soul Day, enjoy these curios all about goodwill and people making a difference.
 
This is one little hero who did big things for the world. Magawa the African giant pouched rat retired in 2021 after five years of sniffing out landmines in Cambodia. In the above photo, one can see how Magawa wore a special harness and walked along a tether, while doing his work. His small stature allowed him to move without setting off any landmines and clear distances far faster than any human could. He was recruited by the Belgian non-profit organization APOPO as a heroRAT to detect and alert his human handlers of the whereabouts of underground explosives to remove them safely. As of his retirement, Magawa has cleared over 34 acres of land and uncovered 71 landmines and 38 unexploded ordnance (explosives remnants). Last year Mogawa was awarded the British charity’s top civilian award for animal bravery, a distinction that usually went to dogs. Since there were an estimated 6 million landmines left over from the Cambodian Civil War, and people in 60 countries are still threatened by unexploded ones, we'd say Magawa and his fellow heroRATs are some of the greatest, tiniest lifesavers in the world!
 

[Image description: Magawa the African giant pouched rat searches for landmines while attached to a red harness.] Credit & copyright: APOPO
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Love Your Red Hair Day, enjoy these “hairy” curios from our archives.
 
Looks like someone’s ready to zoom! Famed fashion designer Hugo Comte, who recently released a book containing many of his best-known photos, captured this image of British singer Dua Lipa in 2020. It was one of a series meant to promote Lipa’s multi-platinum album, Future Nostalgia, and shows Lipa driving a vintage silver sports car beneath a full moon. Lipa’s blonde hair is pulled into a unique, twisted high bun. One of her white-gloved hands rests on the wooden steering wheel, while her pink jacket serves as the image’s brightest pop of color. While fashion photographers are sometimes criticized for portraying models as passive or demure “objects” from which to hang clothes, Comte’s style has always differed. Whether shooting album artwork or promotional images for runway shows, Comte’s models tend to look straight ahead, sometimes directly into the camera, with strong expressions on their faces or in their poses. In an interview with Vogue, Comte explained that he thinks of every woman he photographs as having superpowers. “It’s an obsession with a certain power that I like to extract. It’s in their intention, in their depths, and their thoughts.” With great power comes great photograph-ability!
 

[Image description: singer Dua Lipa with her blonde hair in a bun, wearing a pink jacket and white gloves, driving a silver sports car beneath a full moon. ] Credit & copyright: Hugo Comte
 
Below: two more of Comte’s untitled fashion photos.

It's Flashback Friday! As Halloween approaches, get into the spirit with these spooky curios.
 
Are we seeing things? In many of Francesca Woodman's photos, like House #3, shown here, figures appear vaporous and swirling—like ghosts trying to flee a viewer's gaze. Woodman shot almost exclusively in black and white and often experimented with very slow shutter speeds, which account for the spooky, insubstantial images. She drew influence from Surrealist photographers like Man Ray, and the disintegrating backgrounds against which she set her images—crumbling walls, abandoned buildings—bring to mind the Gothic revivalists, whose work she also studied. Woodman, unfortunately, committed suicide at the young age of 22 after suffering bouts of severe depression. As one critic observed: "Her death does not simply cast a shadow on the images, but suffuses them with a strange, spectral light... [she] seems always to be anticipating her own disappearance." But Woodman hasn't disappeared. Though virtually unknown during her lifetime, her work has won wide recognition in the years since her death, and her vision continues to mesmerize those who enter her haunting and impermanent worlds.
 

Image credit & copyright: The Estate of Francesca Woodman, George and Betty Woodman
 

It's Flashback Friday! Today is Clean Up the Earth Day, a day meant to mark the progress made since Earth Day, six months ago. Enjoy these curios all about protecting the environment.
 
“Water is Life.” Holding a branch as a symbol of peace, the solemn woman in today’s photo is one of the thousands of protesters who has taken a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock Indian Reservation since April. To these peaceful “water protectors,” the pipeline’s threat to local tribal lands and water supply is a key concern. The woman’s expression seems to perfectly reflect the protesters’ resolve and determination, while also revealing the sense of uncertainty looming over their camp as winter descends.
 
A breakthrough for protestors came on Sunday, December 4 when the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would halt construction of a key section of the pipeline, and issue an Environmental Impact Statement to examine alternate routes.
 
Image credit & copyright: Stephanie Keith/Reuters
 

This place may be Dutch, but you won’t find windmills around here. In October of 2010, the Caribbean island nation of Curaçao became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The image above shows a row of colorful buildings by the sea that exemplify the Dutch and Spanish-influenced architecture that is typical to the area. There are many diners gathered under the shade, likely some of the many tourists that visit the island every year. Although it is officially part of the Netherlands, Curaçao is now completely autonomous after a long history of colonialist rule.
 
Aside from the oil refining and financial services that it offers to other countries, a major part of its economy is tourism. The island’s unique geography attracts daring scuba divers with a sharp underwater drop-off known as the “Blue Edge.” However, the country has been struggling in the pandemic, which has severely limited the number of foreign visitors, with ports only recently opened to travelers from the European Union. Hopefully, sunny days are still ahead for this unusual tropical haven.
 
[Image description: A row of colorful buildings stands near a pedestrian walking path by the sea, in Curaçao.] Credit & copyright:
Martin Falbisoner, image cropped for size.

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy some dog-themed curios in honor of National Pug Day.
 
It's National Pug Day, and we're lamenting that the late Jim Buck can't join us in the festivities. According to The New York Times, Buck became the first professional dog walker in 1964, receiving a profile in the famed newspaper entitled "145-Pounder Walks 500 Pounds of Dogs." Unsatisfied with his job as an electronics salesman, Buck quit and began advertising his skills with dog walking and training to his fellow wealthy Upper-East Side New Yorkers. As he became more successful with his pooch venture, Buck could be found walking 30-40 dogs across 25 miles of Manhattan "wearing out the soles of a pair of construction shoes every two weeks." Replacement shoes were no biggie, though: Buck could make up to $500 a week walking the dogs (a hefty $4000 in today's dollars). Buck's business soon employed dozens of walkers tasked with herding hundreds of dogs across New York, with the profits allowing him to form his own training academy, the Jim Buck’s School for Dogs. If dogs could talk, we bet a lot of Buck's pawing pupils would have thanked him for making their lives a little less ruff.

 

This house has seen better days, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth looking at. American photographer Brendon Burton has a knack for capturing the eerie allure of abandoned and isolated places. Houses, farms, hotels and churches, many of them dilapidated or seemingly built in the middle of nowhere, get a new lease on life in Burton’s recent photo series, Thin Places. In the photo above, which is shot from overhead, a derelict wooden house and two trees sit on a bare patch of property in the middle of a lush green field. A person stands in the field nearby, giving a sense of the landscape's enormous scale. In an interview with Monster Children, Burton explained that the house and fields surrounding it burned down not long after he’d photographed it. “The Substation Fire here in Oregon burnt this abandoned house and 70,000 acres of land just a month after I took this photo,” he said. A sad ending for this strange-yet-beautiful place.
 
[Image description: An abandoned wooden house and two trees stand on a bare piece of property in the middle of a lush green field. A person stands in the field, in front of the property.] Credit & copyright: Brendon Burton
 

Below: another photo from Burton’s Thin Places series.

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of World Octopus Day (part of the International Cephalopod Awareness Days which take place from October 8–12) Enjoy these curios about amazing ocean creatures.
 
It's a win-win: an octopus gets a free ride while a turtle gains a sweet hood ornament. Photographer Michael B. Harid feels "extremely fortunate" to have captured this unusual pair cruising by him in Hawaii. The image won him a spot among the finalists of Smithsonian magazine's 2016 Photo Contest. Octopuses are known for their dexterity, strength, and—as displayed in this image—resourcefulness. One of our favorite examples of these skills is the story of Inky, the octopus who escaped from New Zealand’s National Aquarium last January. The cephalopod took advantage of a small gap at the top of his tank, slithered across the aquarium floor, and escaped by squeezing his malleable body through a six-inch-wide drain. We can't help but hope Harid's image is actually one of Inky living out his happy ending, Shawshank Redemption-style. Or should we say, Shaw-tank redemption.

 
Image credit & copyright: Michael B. Hardie
 

This player seems poised to turn the world of baseball upside down. Taken on this day in 1948, the above photo shows Cleveland Indians shortstop Jackie Price performing one of his best-known tricks at a game against the Boston Braves: catching a baseball while strapped upside down to a screen, in full uniform. Known as the “clown prince of baseball”, Price was an acrobat who could reportedly catch and throw while standing on his head and also accurately throw three baseballs at once, in different directions. Unfortunately, he only got to play seven games in the major leagues before his own antics got the best of him. He was thrown off the team shortly after a 1947 stunt in which he released two, five-foot-long boa constrictors in the dining car of a train headed to an exhibition game in California. Afterward, Price teamed up with Max Patkin, another baseball player famous for his acrobatic tricks, and created a traveling baseball stunt show. Even Lou Boudreau, the manager who had fired Price from the Cleveland Indians, called it, “the funniest show I ever saw.” It surely takes a lot of talent to make a living out of clowning around.
[Image description: Jackie Price, of the Cleveland Indians, catches a ball while hanging upside down from a protective screen in front of a crowd and scoreboard.] Credit & copyright: AP Photo/ Frank C. Curtin
 

Below: a photo of Price spinning on his head, on the baseball field.

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Lace Day, enjoy these fashion-forward curios.
 

At first glance, this photo could be an early ethnographic studio portrait—from the patterned fabric to the way the garments are draped to the use of black and white. Closer inspection shows an important detail: a price tag hanging from the woman's belt. Photographer Stephanie Syjuco examines the callous, acquisitive attitudes many Westerners have toward so-called exotic places—and the people who are paid a pittance to make the low-cost clothing produced there. The photographer combed through stores like Forever 21, H&M, and The Gap for "ethnic" patterns, then turned her purchases into backdrops and outfits she modeled herself. In Head Bundle, above, Syjuco wears an Urban Outfitter bag on her head and a choker made from a Target sock; a USB cable encircles her arm. Some images include calibration charts as a way of poking fun of the American companies that borrow patterns from developing countries. Calibration charts are used by photographers to correct color and shading; by including them, Syjuco, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines, questions whether there is a way to fix these ethical imbalances. Syjoco's photos are lovely in their own right—and they'll make us think twice the next time we head for the mall!
 

Syjuco's work is included in the exhibit, Being: New Photography 2018 at New York MoMA through August 19th .
 

Below: Cargo Cults (Basketwoman), and Cargo Cults (Cover Up), by Stephanie Syjuco.
 

Image credit & copyright: Stephanie Syjuco
 

Be sure to clean your plate! In September, Austrian photographer Markus Hofstätter wrote about his dive into food photography using a 170-year-old technique. In green beans with whipped goat cheese and fennel flowers, five lima bean pods rest on a plate with a fork, some loose beans, and spots of sauce. The image bears the characteristic streaks and smudges of photographs made using the collodion wet plate process. Hofstätter is experienced in this technique, in which a glass plate is coated in special chemicals, then exposed and sensitized. The plate is placed against paper during development, which takes on the image as light reacts with the coating. While it can only render monochromatic images, wet plate photography can also capture very fine details. The challenging process has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years after being superseded by cheaper, more convenient methods of photography. While Hofstätter has captured portraits and landscapes with the method, this is the first time he’s worked with food. The opportunity came about when he was purchasing some equipment from renowned food photographer and writer Hans Gerlach, with whom he then collaborated on the project. What will he dish out next?

[Image description: A detailed black and white photo of lima bean pods on a plate with a fork, loose beans, and sauce.] Credit & copyright: Markus Hofstätter

 

Below: a behind-the-scenes look at the collodion wet plate process, plus another of Hofstätter’s photos, sourdough bread with butter and welsh onion.