From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Culture of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? The Breathless Zoo suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. By drawing out the longings at the heart of taxidermy - the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance - The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.
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With The Breathless Zoo, Rachel Poliquin has made a major contribution to the blossoming field of animal studies. This book is the new benchmark on the place of taxidermy in the social history of art, science, and popular culture. Marvelous, rigorous, and extensively well researched, the work is also refreshingly pleasurable to read. Throughout, Poliquin explores the complex questions around the rich cultural texture of taxidermy. And unlike other works on the topic, The Breathless Zoo examines not only what taxidermy is but also what it means. For those of us engaged in thinking about animals, this is the book on the culture of taxidermy we have long awaited a book of great innovation that slices through the history of science, blood sports, and art. --Mark Dion, artist
The Breathless Zoo is an intriguing and poetic meditation on an unlikely subject: stuffed animals in European museums that seem so familiar and so intellectually musty. Rachel Poliquin teases out of them not just a typological order but also a human longing for beauty and wonder, story and allegory. In the dead specimens she finds immortality; in their stasis, movement across the world. The result is a rich panorama of human ideas and desires. --Marina Belozerskaya, author of The Medici Giraffe
I have long been a fan of Rachel Poliquin's otherworldly online museum, ravishingbeast.com, but after reading The Breathless Zoo I know just what she means when she says that all taxidermy, like storytelling, is deeply marked by human longing. I am already longing to read The Breathless Zoo again. --Jay Kirk, University of Pennsylvania
The Breathless Zoo is an intriguing and poetic meditation on an unlikely subject: stuffed animals in European museums that seem so familiar and so intellectually musty. Rachel Poliquin teases out of them not just a typological order but also a human longing for beauty and wonder, story and allegory. In the dead specimens she finds immortality; in their stasis, movement across the world. The result is a rich panorama of human ideas and desires. --Marina Belozerskaya, author of The Medici Giraffe
I have long been a fan of Rachel Poliquin's otherworldly online museum, ravishingbeast.com, but after reading The Breathless Zoo I know just what she means when she says that all taxidermy, like storytelling, is deeply marked by human longing. I am already longing to read The Breathless Zoo again. --Jay Kirk, University of Pennsylvania
About the Author
Rachel Poliquin is a writer and curator engaged with the cultural and poetic history of the natural world. She has curated taxidermy exhibits for the Museum of Vancouver and the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia. Poliquin is the author of ravishingbeasts.com, a website dedicated to exploring the cultural history of taxidermy.
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4.7 out of 5 stars
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive
4 Feb 2013
By mae.mae
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Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Finally - a history of taxidermy that looks deep into meaning and contextualizes what these objects meant and mean now.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lovely book
22 May 2013
By coffee please
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Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you are a fan of taxidermy, or rogue taxidermy art then this book is one for your collection. Really lovely collection.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning, comprehensive study of taxidermy
6 May 2013
By lulu
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Short n' sweet-I LOVE taxidermy(in all of its MANY art forms), and this book is absolutely fascinating. A must have for everyone from the collector-to the artist.
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