BK'S Hottest New Trend: Dead Things

 via The Morbid Anatomy Library and Museum

Well sorta. But Gowanus, our neighboring neighborhood complete with Superfund Canal, Dinosaur BBQ, Whole Foods and an upcoming TEDx event, will also have an expanded museum of morbid curiosities. I say expanded because the original, smaller location known as the Morbid Anatomy Library has been in the Brooklyn's Proteus Gallery since 2008.  According to the Wall Street Journal the now independent Morbid Anatomy Museum will soon open in it's three-floor 4200 square foot location also in Gowanus.

Evan Michelson, star of the Science Channel's show "Oddities" and a board member of the museum told the Journal, "The Morbid Anatomy Museum is going to collect objects that tell that interesting, somewhat eccentric and lesser-told story." Although there will be a permanent collection of things like a genuine human skeleton, preserved vermin in jars, and freaky death masks there will also be exhibitions that will change every six months. The museum's inaugural exhibit will examine the life and work of anthropomorphic taxidermist, Walter Potter (warning website is a little creepy). 

This whole museum started as the brain child of 42 year-old artist Joanna Ebenstein who came to NYC in 1999 to be an artist. As soon as she found the art scene a little too precious for her liking, she became an graphic designer and decided to head off to Europe and photograph medical museums in Europe. There she took great interest in and started collecting things like anatomical ephemera, disfigured wax body models and Korean kokdu dolls. She started a blog about her collection and well, you know how it goes when you find a massive niche audience, which Ebenstein found. 

Now Ebenstein, I've got a hook-up for you and your museum: In an unrelated but sort of related note, the Huffington Post reported that the Torah Animal World "Museum," which is basically 350 stuffed animals jammed into a little row house in Borough Park, is closing. The museum, which also opened in 2008 (a banner year for dead things) touts that it has every Biblical animal species mentioned in the first five books of the Torah. Only problem is, the museum's curator, founder and taxidermy extraordinaire, Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, says he needs a cold hard mil to keep the place open or he'll have to relocate the museum to the Catskills. Ebenstein may be able to help a Rabbi out and get the next exhibit out of the deal. Huh? 

Could we have just made a match made in taxidermist heaven or what?