Death Obsession

I believe I mentioned Hannah Wilke yesterday. She's a photographer whose work is featured in a number of prominent museums. If you ask me, one of the hallmarks of contemporary photography found in prominent museums is not weirdness so much as the ability to disturb the viewer.

And what disturbs a viewer more than images of death or dying? One of Wilke's most famous series of photos, Intra Venus, is the documentation of her death from cancer. Definitely dark. And another photographer/videographer, Alex Prager, is exhibiting a video of a woman throwing herself out a window. It is shocking and comical at the same time.

Then there's the flip side of the death obsession...Halloween! All of our visitors, like us, have been intrigued by the cemetery of scarecrows at Lyndhurst. Arguably, it's not a cemetery at all, but a field of Wizard-of-Oz rejects. However, recall that my first view of the evolving crowd of scarecrows was a field of simple wooden crosses.

But look at it now.