Aspirations to be as extensive as the Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn.
A new collection for the CZC, a Library. The Conservatory has amassed a collection of books on taxidermy; cultural theory, museum origins, do it yourself, museum catalogs and even fictional tellings of taxidermy and taxidermists. The Library is another collection, I always seem to create order in my life by listing, collecting and documenting.
“Umberto Eco: The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.”
