Stuff of Dreams
22 January 2021
Mythical monsters and slithering snakes - a journey through the world of modern taxidermy.
Polly Morgan
Polly Morgan is a British artist living and working in London. Self-taught with no formal education in art, she works in taxidermy, concrete and polyurethane.
Polly Morgan, ‘Unite in a Common Goal’, 2020, polyurethane, nail transfers, paint, varnish, 25 x 18 x 5.5cm.
Image courtesy of Polly Morgan.
Since 2004, when I first took a scalpel to a body, I have repeatedly heard it said that taxidermy is ‘having a moment’. But perhaps, despite the best efforts of moths, it's simply here to stay? It was way back in the 90s that Damien Hirst broke with taxidermy tradition with his superb A Thousand Years, preserving the severed head of a cow in all its gore. Simultaneously Alexander McQueen shook up the fashion world with his inventive use of antlers and wings, taking taxidermy off the wall and back onto the body.
Shortly afterwards, at the 2005 Guild of Taxidermy conference, I was told without irony by many in attendance that it was a ‘dying art'. Some had recently lost jobs working with museums, who throughout the UK were laying off their full time taxidermists. Originally employed to educate us in natural history, they were deemed no longer necessary with the proliferation of zoos, inexpensive travel and high definition photography.
Those managing to still make a living from their craft did so mostly by mounting hunting trophies and pets. The growing squeamishness towards trophy hunting and fur farming at the dawn of this century soon morphed into open contempt. Many assumed this, and the rise in veganism, signalled the death of taxidermy. Yet, just as photography and painting don't die but our use of them adapts to changing tastes, so taxidermy has evolved with its audience.
The narratives shifted from illustrating someone's prowess with a rifle to gentler, more subtle accounts, typified by Tim Walker's dreamlike fashion shoots, where he brings the outside in; an albino peacock perched on a chair or a Spitfire crash landing in a stately home.
Thomas Grünfeld, ‘Misfit (Peacock / Albino Kangaroo / Ostrich)’, 2014, taxidermy. 170 x 130 x 70 cm.
©Lothar Schnepf
Image courtesy of Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London/Hong Kong.
At the turn of the century innovation replaced realism. The artist Thomas Grünfeld created a series of sculptures titled Misfits, where startling hybrids were seamlessly made from a peacock head on a kangaroo body or an ostrich with the head of a giraffe. My own work at this time sought jarring juxtapositions such as a rat curled up in a champagne bowl glass, an effort to encourage the viewer to re-evaluate an unpopular animal by giving it new context.
In 2000 the artist duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster created British Wildlife, a sculpture made from 88 pieces of taxidermy placed together apparently at random. When lit from a particular angle the shadow thrown on the wall behind is a perfect silhouette of their faces and torsos; a self portrait from the detritus of Noble's late father's life as a collector.
Jazmine Miles-Long, Magpie 'Pica pica. Memorial. a tribute to taxidermy'.
Image courtesy of Jazmine Miles-Long.
After an opportunistic period in the 2010s of rushed taxidermy courses, a new seriousness has emerged from a generation less keen to mock and for whom respect is key in all parts of life. These 'ethical’ taxidermists and enthusiasts are overwhelmingly female and vegetarian if my inbox is anything to go by, and wouldn't dream of using an animal killed for the purpose. They don't pretend you can learn taxidermy in two hours and have studied their practice over the time it requires. Jazmine Miles-Long is a gimmick-free taxidermist with a timeless quality. She teaches, restores for museums and mounts animals in a crisp, minimal style without trimmings. From a skilled practitioner like Miles-Long, giving space to your subject is a powerful way to underscore its beauty.
Elle Kaye is a taxidermist for the digital age; photogenic and always engaging with her audience on social media, she is as modern as they come. After starting out on the pop-up teaching circuit, she worked hard to progress from the mouse-in-a-cravat cliché and sets a great example to younger students with her hard work and enthusiasm.
Polly Morgan, Installation view ‘How to Behave at Home’, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, 2020.
Image courtesy of Polly Morgan.
For those harking back to a less modern aesthetic, Dutch duo Darwin, Sinke & van Tongeren bridge the gap between traditional taxidermy and fine art, creating majestic still lives inspired by 17th century Dutch painters.
I am keen to see where taxidermy will go next. For my latest exhibition How to Behave at Home, I used the bodies of snakes and the hides of hedgehogs to comment on the pandemic and life under lockdown. To ensure this art form doesn't suffer and die, we need to keep finding ways for it to complement and reflect life now.
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