Placenta, the other white meat...

I read this article in TIME magazine a while back about how mothers are utilizing the medicinal benefits of placenta to fight postpartum depression. Apparently, there is a woman who comes to your house, cooks it and dehydrates it into pill form. I found the article here. Other recipes I found included placenta lasagna, placenta power shakes and placenta polenta (I made that last one up for comedic effect). You can also eat it raw or dried. Apparently, it also helps to soothe menopausal symptoms. Here is a video about eating placenta... I how the man rolls his "r"s.

I also found a link to artists who make placenta prints. That is, they take a fresh placenta and stamp it onto a page to form patterns and designs. My favorite link is here.

Ali

Wesley Anderegg

Hey all, another one of my favorite artists. Wesley Anderegg makes some amazing ceramic sculptures that are simultaneously funny and gross. Grotesque to me. I held some of his pieces in my hands, including some sweet salt and pepper shakers that were hammering nails into their heads. You guys should really check it out.

Disclaimer: His old stuff is way cooler than the new. See you in class soon.

http://www.wesleyanderegg.com/

-Colby

Just memento mori

For those of you unfamiliar with Victorian mourning jewelry and photography I thought I would post some examples of both.

These are examples of post-mortem photography popular in the Victorian era when the deceased were often posed with their living counterparts, or propped up as if to appear still alive.




Memorial jewelry is best known to contain locks of the deceased hair, sometimes in sculptural forms to be worn or displayed as constant reminders of those lost.

Memento Mori and Loren Schwerd

Remember we are dying.

Basing her fiber sculptures on the mourning jewelry of the Victorian era and earlier Loren Schwerd uses human and synthetic hair scavenged from a flooded New Orleans beauty shop to recreate the skeletons of the homes in the area.

Sabine Pigalle

Sabine Pigalle often tends to organize her photographs in pairs of comparison, whether it is through placing two photographs side by side in exhibition or by placing two figures or two objects together or in opposition within one photograph. Of particular interest would be her two volumes of recipes: Toxi Food and Festins Libertins.

The blog is being slow.

Not really grotesque, just think that it's a video that everybody must see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capybara_Ueno_Zoo_2009.ogv

-Colby

Woody Allen

So I’ve been watching a bunch of Woody Allen movies lately, and every one I see I feel like I could talk about for this class, because they are often disturbing or bizarre at parts. However, I’m going to go with one released in 1972: “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask." If you haven’t seen it, it consists of series of short, unrelated segments each supposedly answering a question about sex, such as “Do aphrodisiacs work?” or “What is sodomy?” It was apparently inspired by a book by the same name written by a physician, David Rueben. The book was one of the first sex manuals, and, published in 1969, became a No. 1 bestseller in 51 countries. Rueben has since revised the book, saying he’s had to change 96% of his original information. There is an interesting article about this at http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9902/11/sex/

Anyways back to the movie, which was ridiculous, taboo, and sometimes struck me as outright offensive. Here are some key moments.

Giant attacking breast, from “Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate?”

Man/animal love. This is from the segment “What is Sodomy.” This section makes me wildly uncomfortable.

That’s Woody Allen dressed up as a sperm, from “What happens during ejaculation.”

Anyways if you haven’t seen it I encourage it. Let me know what you think.