Amusing the Zillion

Mummified Six Fingered Witch Hand & Giant Stag Beetle by Takeshi Yamada. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

For the past three years the glass cabinets at the Coney Island branch of the Brooklyn Public Library have showcased a rotating display of artwork that befits Coney Island’s history as host to oddities and curiosities from around the world. If you haven’t seen Takeshi Yamada’s long-running “Museum of World Wonders: Cabinet of Curiosities” yet, the exhibition is on view through Dec. 31 at the Mermaid Avenue library. [Dec. 19 Update: we received an e-mail from Yamada with the good news that the Cabinet of Curiosities show has been extended for another year --through December 31, 2010--- at the Coney Island Library.]

Skull of the Sea Dragon by Takeshi Yamada. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

When I stopped by during Halloween week, the curiosities included a mummified six-fingered witch’s hand, a cat frog (“There are about a dozen species of frogs with whiskers in this world”), samurai warrior horseshoe crab mask, three-eyed human skull, giant sea dragon’s skull (purportedly “discovered” by Yamada on the beach in 1790), a Nuclear Radiation Giant Stag Beetle of Bikini Atoll, and fancifully labeled cans of Coney Island brand King Tarantula and Coelacanth. “An Extra Fancy Living Fossil.” Oh, yum!…

T Rex Bone, NYC Giant Subway Bug & Coney Island Fancy Canned Goods by Takeshi Yamada. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Yamada, who has an MFA in fine art from the University of Michigan School of Art and is Grand Champion of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, considers his artwork “specimens” rather than examples of self expression. He uses a variety of natural materials to create his curiosities including some that might be considered controversial. The two-headed babies exhibited this summer in his “Baby Museum” at Coney Island’s Dreamland amusement area are rogue taxidermied artifacts made from his own skin, says Yamada. [Scroll down to "Comments" for details.]

Artist Takeshi Yamada's Freak Baby Show in Coney Island's Dreamland, Summer 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

The Japanese-born artist and longtime Neptune Avenue resident is one of Coney Island’s most recognizable eccentrics. In the summer, you’re apt to find Yamada clad in a black tuxedo and Mardi Gras beads strolling the Boardwalk with his sea rabbit Seara, a taxidermied wonder with webbed feet and a mermaid’s tail. On November 15, he’ll be defending his Grand Master title at the 4th Annual Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest at the Bell House in Gowanus. In the meantime, you can visit Yamada in his studio and get a peek at his Fiji mermaid, two headed baby, dog-headed spider and other sideshow gaff art via this video from Brooklyn Cable Access TV…

Takeshi Yamada’s “Museum of World Wonders: Cabinet of Curiosities”
Coney Island Library, 1901 Mermaid Ave (at W 19th St), Coney Island, Brooklyn, 718-265-3220. Through December 31, 20092010. The library is a five-minute walk from the Stillwell Avenue subway terminal. Check library hours here

Posted in art | Tagged Brooklyn, Cabinet of Curiosities, Coney Island, gaff art, Mummified Hand, oddities, rogue taxidermy, sideshow gaff, Takeshi Yamada, two headed baby | 4 Comments

4 Responses

1. on November 15, 2009 at 4:01 pm | Reply JeffR

   I love Coney Island haha thats very interesting, .

   
   
2. on November 21, 2009 at 1:05 pm | Reply sueb262

   how, do you think, he collected “his own skin” for use in fabricating the two-headed baby?

   
   
3. on November 22, 2009 at 9:46 am | Reply Tricia

   Thank you both for your comments. A number of readers had questions about the artist’s statement that he made the babies using his own skin and how he collected his skin. I recalled Yamada telling me that he shed his skin every summer and peeled it, but I contacted him for more info. He sent me the following detailed description which will be published next year in one of his forthcoming chapters on “The Baby Show” at http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html.

   Creatures as art supplies

   by Takeshi Yamada

   We live inside of dead creatures – houses made of killed and dead trees. Up to the recent centuries (with the rise of the new technology of artificial/synthetic materials), people used killed and dead creatures to exist, live and built cultures and civilizations.

   Anything can be art supplies for artists. Using the body parts of plants, animals and human for creating artworks has been done for many centuries around the world as norm and common. For sizing the canvas before oil painting, cotton duck canvas (made of dead creature – cotton plants) is traditionally coated (sized) with the skin of dead animal (rabbit) commonly called “rabbit skin glue”, which you can still buy at art supply stores today. You may be surprised to know that cheap lipsticks and cheap apple juice you bought today at grocery stores (made in USA and other nations) contains killed, crashed, and grinded female cactus lice bugs (this 8-legged arthropod is actually a relative of the spider than the insect) for their vivid red color.

   It is not anything strange for many painters for many centuries including myself mixing their blood into paints for their watercolor paintings, acrylic paintings, and oil color paintings. In the fine art Intaglio printing, the artist’s spit is used for aquatint and it is called “Spit bite” technique, which I utilized for my Etching prints when I was an art school student. Human hairs (removed from the body) are another popular human body parts used for creating beautiful artworks by many artists for many centuries. In Japan, paintbrushes made of babies’ hairs are sold as traditional art supplies even today. I personally made many paint brushes by using donated human female hairs; they were also shown at my fine art exhibitions next to my paintings.

   Using human skins is just another art supplies for my artworks. During summer months, I shed skins multiple times, and I carefully remove them from my body, save them, and preserve them as “specimens” for my Cabinet of Curiosities. (My collections also include unique skins of “Elephant Woman/Alligator Woman, whose skin condition is medically called “ichthyosis” resembles an alligator than normal humans.) I mounted my own skin specimens on the super-realistic replicas of freak human babies, which I created based on many “real born and dead human babies”. In this way their body surfaces looks really real than ones replicated in other materials (rubber, plastic, fiberglass, clay etc.). In loose term, my freak babies are my clones.

   Obtaining dead human body parts for you may be difficult, costly (at medical supply stores), and in some cases, violates laws/regulations (punishable by imprisonment) today in America. Nevertheless, creating artworks by using his own body parts is a complete legal loophole, as long as it does not result any medical problems for the artist himself.

   PS. I am a professionally trained medical assistant with a nationally recognized certification. For more information about my “Baby Shows”, read my article to be published next year after my current “Giant Snake Show” article and “Snake Woman Shows” article (to be published next year) in http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html.

   © Takeshi Yamada

   
   
   • on November 22, 2009 at 1:17 pm | Reply sueb262

     Wow! That is so interesting! Thanks for this response–I actually merely hoped that someone would know the answer to this; I never imagined that we would get such a full and detailed answer directly from the author’s own writings about his work. I like how he looks at this.