I’m glad I am not the only one. I was eye balling the “unicorn”. Because then I could say “Do YOU have a unicorn in YOUR living room?” “I didn’t think so!”
They remind me of a rather terrifying Roald Dahl short story, as well. Good grief. Still…this taxidermy work just reminds one that the majority of ‘taxidermists’ on Etsy are just embarassing themselves.
For the record, Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) states: “It’s actually a zebra colt mannequin covered with old, leftover cow and goose pieces. You can tell because of the stitching and also because pegasuses are much bigger in real life.”
BadassLactatingHoneyBadger
August 9, 2012 at 11:28 pm
That’s a very young puppy, maybe two weeks old. I don’t think his eyes were open very long before he was stuffed. His paws aren’t developed enough yet to bare weight, still a crawler.
Yes, these are beautifully made. But the “dead cute things” kind of bum me out.
Artistically, I appreciate these. But the little puppy makes me so sad. I want to snuggle it and kiss it, but its totally dead. I have enough confusing feelings as it is!
I think that the doll like figure with the parrot head represents the Etsy admins. On one hand, you have a frail girl wishing she was holding a ukelele instead of a violin, daydreaming about Earl grey tea and wearing an upcycled skirt made from old curtains. On the other hand…
Ah, who am I kidding? I don’t know anything about art. I’m the asshole who gets drunk before going to the art museum and then tearfully informs strangers that I love vaginas SO MUCH after staring at the Georgia O’Keefes for two hours.
All of this taxidermy work looks pretty cool though.
I’m all about reusing dead things, but some of these are seriously endangered critters…cheetah cubs? Where do these guys get their materials? I’m pretty sure some of these things would be illegal to own in the US
Not illegal to own, but possibly illegal to sell. Even very endangered animal parts are legal to possess with the right paperwork (like taxidermied tigers) but many CITES animals can only be sold within the state they’re already in and can’t cross state lines.
hm, yeah. just got a look at the website. There are cubs. A lot of the stuff looks like newborns (maybe still-borns) and some of it looks very old (maybe that’s what inspired the artist to use pieces of some of them?) Could definitely be ethically obtained, but probably an ass-load of paperwork to deal with selling/buying these.
Although the style of the finished artworks is intended to make everything look shiny and new, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the more exotic animals were taxidermied long ago (in an un-ironic way, when taxidermy was actually popular) and have been picked up by the artists and restored. Although I bet a lot of old taxidermy stuff has deteriorated due to bad storage, or simply been thrown away, there’s probably a lot still left in existence, with probably little collector’s market for most of it.
Obviously a lot of craftsmanship as well as imagination here, which is what makes this stuff so blinding to Etsy-accustomed eyes.
Ok, ok, sorry for ruining your comment with my stupid comment.
(But the grammar cop in me is still autistically expecting a “them” :p )
(It’s a superpower, ok?)
Too bad that my favorites are all sold already. I think I will get me a few beaver faces on Etsy and hot glue them to some Barbie dolls. But it just would not be the same… exquisite weirdness!
Oh well. Once the laudanum-Red-Bull has kicked in, I may be able to sleep a bit. Dreamless, I hope.
You all are gonna thumb me down like a motherfucker, but this is sick. Really sick. Endangered species? Housepets? Parrots? You want to know about parrots? That African Grey had the intellectual capacity of a 3 – 5 yr old child. Are we going to pretend all these animals lived happy lives then died of natural causes? Just because it looks pretty doesn’t mean it’s right. Kill animals for food, ok, but this brutality for the sake of some whimsicle nonsense is just fucking bullshit. What species would it take to draw some outrage here?
Well, you never see them in the grocery store anymore, so I can see why you’d say that. But if I ate one, I’d be glad to donate the inedible parts to “artistic” re-purposing.
There were about 6 items on the menu at the restaurant tonight, and one of them was cornish hen. I didn’t have it, but I did raise my sweet tea vodka in a silent toast to you, Dark Sock. Because that was an excellent snappy comeback.
I agree with both of you. I’ve always been turned off by taxidermy in general, to me it’s just horrifying for some reason.
I’d like to state for the record that I am neither vegan or hippy – I’m just squicked out by corpses on display. It doesn’t matter to me if they’re animal or human. (There was a traveling science museum exhibit of plastinated human bodies that came here and gave me nightmares the whole time it was in town because they advertised it heavily on tv. *shudder*)
That Human Body display was great! Sorry it bothered you. I thought it would be gross but when I saw it at the LA fair, it was actually fascinating. By the way, I could never get into the medical field, but the plasticized bodies were just neat.
I’m going to guess that there are enough zoo animals and exotic/regular pets and wild animals that die of disease or accidents or are euthanized in Europe to provide several dozen “clean” subjects per year for taxidermy without the need for an intercontinental animal killing spree.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I have a parrot just like the beheaded doll statue one. He is blind and funny and clever and clownish and fabulous and affectionate and basically spends his life nestled into my shoulder. (Rescued from the wild as a blind baby, so also ethically sourced.)
They ARE beautifully done, but living parrots and cheetahs and hummingbirds are transcendent. Not kitsch or clever, but transcendent.
A lot of modern taxidermy artists have a policy of using animals which have died accidentally (e.g. roadkill) or from natural causes, and I believe that’s what we’re seeing here. Les Deux Garcons’ animal parts are ethically sourced according to Hi Fructose magazine.
I’ve spent the past five weeks bottle-feeding a kitten that was dumped — umbilical still attached, but hastilly shredded — under our house by its mother while fireworks were going off in all the surrounding yards.
There were two, but one died at the end of the first week. By “ethical” standards, I could have had that dead kitten stuffed and mounted for my visual pleasure (it was pure white with such cute pink ears and toes…I cried hard when it succumbed to some congenital defect or natural flaw).
Just because an animal corpse is “ethically sourced” doesn’t make it any less horrific when made into a dust-catcher.
(The living kitten is thriving, although lacking any embellishment.)
No thumbs down here; I am also disgusted by these, but then, even aside from having to repair animals damaged by humans, I respect my own animals, everybody else’s animals, any old animals whatsoever. No matter how well done, these … things … are macabre and tasteless.
I forget sometimes we’re not total assholes here. I myself can go along for months being a complete asshole when suddenly I’ll see a tiara wearing puppy humping an ostrich egg, and my heart just breaks.
I feel particularly sorry for the leopard. Such a strong fierce animal in a fucking hat and pink bow.
And while taxidermy is NOT appealing to me, I can at least tolerate the “regular” type (particularly if the animal was also used as food) better than this chopping up and reassembling asst. part stuff.
Agreed. Regular ‘ol taxidermy, or even “creative” taxidermy (e.g. creating a jackalope) just doesn’t rub me the wrong way the way this stuff does.
It just feels…really disrespectful to chop the head off of a parrot corpse and affix it to a precious moments figurine. The teddy/dog was especially distressing.
stephani9: I totally agree. I was humming along enjoying the exquisite wierdness, and stopped cold at the tiara-puppy-egg thing, where the squick just caught up with me hard.
I’m okay with discussing whether the animals were already dead or did they actually kill them for this, but it’s pointless to start arguing if they are tasteful or not. I like them (at least the pictures,) and personally have no problems with using dead bodies for whatever. I might even buy one someday.
I’m also on the naive side and hope that most taxidermists use naturally dead animals, because I see no point of killing animals just for it since taxidermy obviously isn’t that popular. But if there is even one idiot who pays for someone to kill him an animal just so he can stuff it, I hope he dies horribly.
tl;dr : Some like these, some don’t. People who kill animals for stupid reasons need to be stuffed and upcycled.
I apologize for getting all tedious and animal-rightsy when this isn’t the proper venue for it, but I work at a parrot sanctuary with over 500 parrots, and we’ve had over 700 desperate surrender requests since January which of course we can’t accommodate.
So I do have a bad idea of where this artist might get her parrots. Tireless background research by Kirsten at Hi-Fructose magazine notwithstanding.
Ironically, I’m driving to KY to attend a conference of avian veterinarians and had stopped halfway in MD for the night. Eight hours on the road, followed by a questionable crab cake and way too many drinks with something called “sweet tea vodka”, capped off by encountering a lone (live) lovebird in a glass case in the lobby of the crappy Ramada did not put me in a fun frame of mind to see this when I logged on for my nightly dose of regretsy humor.
I promise not to preach here again. Even if I do appear to get way more thumbs up than when I’m merely being hilarious…
You’re right, there’s not one here. There was one on the site which I was stupid enough to go look at. I referenced it because in the absence of chimps or dolphins, it was the highest-level intelligence animal there.
You can tell by the way they can drive a perfectly sane human being crazy.
The bulldog teddy bear is very upsetting to me. You can tell he was somebody’s old, beloved, loyal pet. And somebody just lopped off his head and stuck it on a teddy bear. I think that is grounds for a psychological review of the artist. He could be just a few short steps away from being a full-blown serial killer.
Roadkill squirrels and old bear pelts discovered in a storage unit – OK to taxidermy.
Pets, endangered species, and animals killed for the sake of it – not OK to taxidermy.
I’m very conflicted about taxidermy, but using long dead animals that were obtained through antique fairs and estate sales doesn’t make someone a potential serial killer.
But I hear you about using dogs. In fact, I specifically included that one because it bothered me so much. But my reaction led me to ask questions of myself:
• Why did some of these upset me and some not?
• Why can I eat meat and wear leather, but draw the line at using other parts of the animal in artwork?
• Would it be okay if someone stuffed and mounted a beloved pet they personally owned? What if that pet owner was also dead? If the taxidermy no longer has meaning to anyone, is it now just an object to be repurposed? Or should it be destroyed?
In the end, art is supposed to provoke strong emotions – even negative ones – so to me, this is a great success on a lot of levels.
I see where you’re going with this but I am NOT going debase my dead hobo collection in a giant hamster cage tableau. Not after that really giant ant farm lesson!
It is still the lack of respect. Yes, everything becomes parts after death, of no use whatsoever to the original ‘occupant’. But the treatment of dead things is linked to how we treat living things ( that’s why we have laws about abusing human corpses) ‘The parrot was already dead, connects, psychologically, to ‘It’s JUST a parakeet’. The bottom line for a lot of folks is that if the use of a component of a live thing for impractical purposes is distressing to an individual, then yes, that person needs to rethink the acceptance of using ANY part of it. Horsehide seats in the Rolls Royce are luxurious and sophisticated , but eating horsemeat is gross? Excuse me, but ….
Estate sales? Note to self: Time to hang on to Great-Grandmother’s beloved taxidermied cat (named Flossie, died at 18, very white and fluffy but apparently horrible-tempered), even though it creeps me the heck out whenever I forget what’s in the red box in the bottom of the cedar chest and-OHGOD.
I am also conflicted with this art form. I think the reason my leather bag doesn’t bother me is because it doesn’t look like the soul of the animal is trapped inside an eternally still sculpture, silently screaming for help through its unblinking glass eyeballs. It wasn’t manufactured to look like another living being – its just a bag. But, realistically, it is only marginally less heinous than taxidermy. Maybe even more? Truth, sister.
It is curious – what makes us draw the line? Is there even be any logic or philosophy behind what makes us decide whether or not certain things re acceptable? Just one of those funny things about human perception, I guess.
And I don’t really think these guys are serial killers… I was being hyperbolic. Any time 4-torso’d deer are involved, I use hyperbole.
I think the line between “upsetting” and “not upsetting” is the odd difference between “pet” and “not pet” in the eyes of most people.
Having leather shoes, belt, jacket, etc…or a moose head on the wall in the den…wouldn’t bother most people because belts, shoes, and jackets don’t have a face and could be any fabric, really. Most people don’t have strong childhood connections/subconcious affiliations with moose – so the head could be any wild animal or non-pet animal, really.
Things like bird heads, dog fetuses, and various cats might stir up emotions based on subconcious feelings of right and wrong, family (dogs, cats, pet birds) and non-family (“wild” animals). To kill family feels wrong. To see some random animal dead or to wear leather doesn’t feel wrong.
It’s interesting to press personal boundries based on limits we can’t always see or name, as Helen stated.
I dunno… I feel bad when I see a random dead animal. Even if I know it was the result of possums fighting each other for territory and therefore “natural causes”. I felt especially sick when said mostly decapitated possum was on the floor of the garage.
@stephani9, if someone snapped the head off a parrot to glue it on to a statue, I would share your outrage. But according to the artists, everything they use comes from antique fairs and old estates and collections. These animals have been dead for many, many years.
I’m not crazy about taxidermy, but once the animal has been stuffed and mounted, I can’t get outraged over someone else coming along and modifying it.
Oh, I agree with re-purposing something which has been long dead. But why should we take the artist’s word for it? It’s in her interest to lie just to keep animal nuts like me off her back. Also, I can’t get past the fact that long dead taxidermied animals LOOK long dead. Fur and feathers fade and degrade over time, and get eaten by insects and rodents. Those pieces are TOO brilliantly colored and TOO perfect to be some antique flea market finds. But no, lacking a full investigation beyond “hey artist, did’ya get all your animals from ethical sources?”, we can’t know for sure. All I can do is look at circumstantial evidence – the too perfect specimens, and my anecdotal experience – knowledge of what commonly happens to the legions of unwanted parrots, and draw my own conclusions about the collection as a whole. Sorry if it offends anyone.
That’s actually kind of silly. Taxidermists do not always kill the animals they work with. And if they are repurposing these pieces to make new artwork, it stands to reason that they would refurbish them.
I don’t like taxidermy very much, but I have no reason to believe these two guys are on a killing spree, wiping out everything from old bulldogs to foxes to piglets. I mean, look, if they were specializing in parakeets for instance, you could question if they were raising them for that purpose. But zebras? Calfs? An Ibex? On what safari do you hunt Cheetahs and puppies?
Circumstantial evidence and anecdotal evidence do not make great cases.
I have no problem agreeing to disagree, but I consider taking the profit-making artist’s word for anything as equally silly. Why are we loath to treat it with the same level of skepticism with which we regard the claims of chinese resellers and Balinese boat repurposers?
Profit? What profit? Do you know how expensive it is to fly all over the world to kill exotic animals? That shit adds up. Plus you have to go to all those farms to knock off cows and piglets, and then you got to ship them back to France. Although they probably drive the refrigerated trucks themselves so they can stop at animal shelters to find aging bulldogs.
I have a friend who works with feathers in her artwork, and often buys vintage hats to get feathers for her designs. You would be surprised how well pelts and feathers hold up over time if well taken care of.
there is a restaurant in a more rural area of florida that has lots of fucked up taxidermy. its called clark’s fish camp. and just as it has lots of dead things on the wall/ceiling/fuckingeverywhere, they also serve exotic meats.
also:
not sure if you’ve ever noted the fuckery in damien hirsts work, like “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (lolwut). just a preserved shark in a square tank.
also:
crappytaxidermy.com is a fucking golden site.
I love taxidermy, but most of these aren’t to my taste — they’re trying too hard to be whimsical or surreal. But the porcelain figures with bird heads… I want them all!
And then I realized I was wrong and since I was tricked this has to be art indeed. Also, in 20′ the cafeteria in my office building opens and the cure I’m looking for will be waiting for me there.
Unrelated but creepy. I sat down to check regretsy post vacation. My son clicks on the TV and I distinctly hear Clarabelle the Cows voice. Eerie, but still not as eerie as the teddy bear with the dog face….
I love these even though they are sad. I thinks it’s odd after looking at their site, no domestic cats. Yet they go through whatever trouble to procure the big cats for their art. Maybe they have lots of pet cats and can’t bear to stuff them?
i think animals are just as sentient as us- even the very low intelligence ones! I love my pets but I defend this. If I can relish the exquisite flavor of a well-grilled steak, the outer bits are just as legit.
I doubt a bunch of artists found a way to kill a fucking tiger to make a sculpture. the best they could do is find one. there are many ways to fix flaws, you don’t have to kill a fresh one. animals are beautiful AND the grotesque is beautiful AND questionable taste is sorta beautiful too.
i’ll probably get thumbs down – it’s ok i can take it.
while i think these are done incredibly well, i still say ewwww. i don’t really enjoy taxidermy. before pictures i understand the use, but to me now it just seems a bit primitive, like trophy hunting. i’ve seen some really bad jobs and i always hate the ones in museums, but whatever. i guess if the animal died naturally or accidentally i’d rather see the fur used for a person in siberia to keep warm in winter, rather than as a whimsical statue. the artist did a great job capturing the beauty of the animals (minus the dog on the teddy bear – wtf) but the others are showing off the animals for the most part, but still, eewww for me.
lots of things in life serve no purpose and i get that and even own some, but these serve no purpose and leave me scratching my head. i just don’t get it.
When I was younger, my parents once took me to a party at one of their yuppie friend’s house. On the water, this McMansion was full of African taxidermy. I mean every. single. room. A zebra head over the TV, meerkats watching you pee, umbrellas in an elephant foot, all that.
The story was, they go on vacation to Africa every year. And they pay to go to a shooting range. And they pay to rent a gun, and for someone else to skin it, mount it, and ship it back to America. Because your rumpus room really needs an entire pride of lions. And they need to die, so you can have it.
You are right. That is waaay sicker than anything here. You kill it and don’t eat it, just wrong.(I am assuming that you weren’t served lion casserole when you visited)?
I fucking love birds, I would risk my life to save my cockatiel’s, but hell yeah I’d get a weird taxidermy sculpture of her after she passes away. I think she would appreciate being immortalized as a ukelele-playing milkmaid, or stomping a miniature replica of Tokyo or something awesome like that.
I don’t know about your cockatiel, but my parents found theirs at their balcony last summer. After a year of being their kid and earning their trust (open cage and balcony doors) it left them by majestically flying out the door.
I didn’t worry about it. A few months earlier we’d come across the previous owner that the cockatiel had left last summer. Needless to say she had found it at her balcony two summers ago.
You getting taxidermy of her? Ha ha. We are all cockatiels’ bitches.
I am surprised to find something like this as a post. Do we have a ghostwriter-poster lately…? Sure, it’s bizarre, but more on the creepy side of bizarre, not the comforting, dancing dror-bizarre.
I have this mental image of the artist, sitting upon a rotating dias in the center of a room filled with his work, wanking furiously beneath their collective glassy-eyed gaze.
August 9, 2012 at 6:32 pm
But was it ethically taxidermied?
August 9, 2012 at 6:33 pm
these are INCREDIBLE, i want every single one.
August 9, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Those are awesomely creepy in that I want them all, but I don’t want to look too closely or think too much about them.
August 9, 2012 at 11:26 pm
It’s like a gay Island of Doctor Moreau.
August 10, 2012 at 6:32 am
I’m glad I am not the only one. I was eye balling the “unicorn”. Because then I could say “Do YOU have a unicorn in YOUR living room?” “I didn’t think so!”
August 10, 2012 at 6:41 pm
Anyone else remember that horrifying running lamb movie that HK posted last summer?
Because that thing still HAUNTS MY DREAMS.
August 10, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Ewwwwwe!
August 9, 2012 at 6:36 pm
I want the parrot as a hood ornament!
August 9, 2012 at 9:42 pm
I want a pedestrian for a hood ornament but I don’t think I can afford the taxidermy.
August 12, 2012 at 3:48 pm
“Kaylee, find that kid whose taking a dirt nap with the baby Jesus. We need a hood ornament.”
August 9, 2012 at 6:39 pm
I love these, love love love them. They are exquisite weirdness.
I don’t want them, though. I’d never sleep. They are so…cheerfully still.
August 9, 2012 at 7:12 pm
“Exquisite weirdness.”
That is perfect.
August 11, 2012 at 3:16 pm
They remind me of a rather terrifying Roald Dahl short story, as well. Good grief. Still…this taxidermy work just reminds one that the majority of ‘taxidermists’ on Etsy are just embarassing themselves.
August 9, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Bloggess, your move.
August 9, 2012 at 7:13 pm
She’s got it covered; just took delivery of a baby Pegasus:
August 10, 2012 at 3:09 pm
For the record, Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) states: “It’s actually a zebra colt mannequin covered with old, leftover cow and goose pieces. You can tell because of the stitching and also because pegasuses are much bigger in real life.”
Just thought I’d clarify on her behalf.
August 9, 2012 at 6:49 pm
“Remember, Rover gets the pill and Pepper gets the suppository.”
August 9, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Um, so. Well. Is that a fetal puppy? Or an ostritch egg? Or… umm, both???
August 9, 2012 at 9:49 pm
a mouse that’s been altered to look like a dog?
August 9, 2012 at 11:28 pm
That’s a very young puppy, maybe two weeks old. I don’t think his eyes were open very long before he was stuffed. His paws aren’t developed enough yet to bare weight, still a crawler.
Yes, these are beautifully made. But the “dead cute things” kind of bum me out.
August 10, 2012 at 5:56 pm
“Fragility” the puppy is too touching. It’s terrific but I don’t think I could stand to see it face to face.
August 11, 2012 at 6:40 pm
oh yeah. Now that I look at it again, it looks like a still-born puppy.
August 9, 2012 at 6:56 pm
It’s everything I ever wanted… Except dead.
August 11, 2012 at 6:17 pm
My feelings exactly
August 9, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Wow, some of these are beautiful… but I think I’d be too creeped out to stand next to them in person.
August 9, 2012 at 7:05 pm
So THAT’s how you craft with junk and taxidermy and make it TOTES AMAZEBALLS.
WANT.
August 9, 2012 at 7:14 pm
These all are beautifully creepy. I love them, especially the dog teddy bear. It’s a whole lot of win.
August 9, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Unless one of your best friends growing up was a brown Boxer named Teddy.
August 9, 2012 at 7:18 pm
The second one just SCREAMS Homage to Sir Alfred Hitchcock.
Bravo:)
August 10, 2012 at 5:43 am
For how longer will I be missing references to Hitchcock?!!
(This started with Bad Romance.)
August 9, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Artistically, I appreciate these. But the little puppy makes me so sad. I want to snuggle it and kiss it, but its totally dead. I have enough confusing feelings as it is!
August 9, 2012 at 7:36 pm
They MUST be Belgian.
August 9, 2012 at 7:37 pm
The deer and goats make me think “Human Centipede for critters”.
August 9, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I think that the doll like figure with the parrot head represents the Etsy admins. On one hand, you have a frail girl wishing she was holding a ukelele instead of a violin, daydreaming about Earl grey tea and wearing an upcycled skirt made from old curtains. On the other hand…
Ah, who am I kidding? I don’t know anything about art. I’m the asshole who gets drunk before going to the art museum and then tearfully informs strangers that I love vaginas SO MUCH after staring at the Georgia O’Keefes for two hours.
All of this taxidermy work looks pretty cool though.
August 9, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 9, 2012 at 8:09 pm
This stuff is a whole other level of what-the-fuckery. I really like the bird ones.
August 9, 2012 at 8:12 pm
You had me at “Submitted by Satanica Batcakes“.
August 9, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I’m all about reusing dead things, but some of these are seriously endangered critters…cheetah cubs? Where do these guys get their materials? I’m pretty sure some of these things would be illegal to own in the US
August 9, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Not illegal to own, but possibly illegal to sell. Even very endangered animal parts are legal to possess with the right paperwork (like taxidermied tigers) but many CITES animals can only be sold within the state they’re already in and can’t cross state lines.
They have a lot of paperwork.
August 9, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Ha! I guess so. I deal with CITES for living critters at work and that’s fuss enough.
August 9, 2012 at 9:55 pm
I think that’s a fully-grown leopard (maybe a juvenile, but definitely not a cub).
August 9, 2012 at 11:29 pm
There are more of these, with different animals, at the link.
August 10, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Haha yah, sorry. Referring to some things I saw on the actual website of the artist. Definitely cheetah cubs.
August 11, 2012 at 6:51 pm
hm, yeah. just got a look at the website. There are cubs. A lot of the stuff looks like newborns (maybe still-borns) and some of it looks very old (maybe that’s what inspired the artist to use pieces of some of them?) Could definitely be ethically obtained, but probably an ass-load of paperwork to deal with selling/buying these.
August 10, 2012 at 9:27 am
Although the style of the finished artworks is intended to make everything look shiny and new, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the more exotic animals were taxidermied long ago (in an un-ironic way, when taxidermy was actually popular) and have been picked up by the artists and restored. Although I bet a lot of old taxidermy stuff has deteriorated due to bad storage, or simply been thrown away, there’s probably a lot still left in existence, with probably little collector’s market for most of it.
Obviously a lot of craftsmanship as well as imagination here, which is what makes this stuff so blinding to Etsy-accustomed eyes.
August 9, 2012 at 8:20 pm
I’m going to leave her my body in my will. You’ve all been warned.
August 10, 2012 at 5:45 am
“Her”?
August 10, 2012 at 9:32 am
Ok, ok, sorry for ruining your comment with my stupid comment.
(But the grammar cop in me is still autistically expecting a “them” :p )
(It’s a superpower, ok?)
August 9, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Too bad that my favorites are all sold already. I think I will get me a few beaver faces on Etsy and hot glue them to some Barbie dolls. But it just would not be the same… exquisite weirdness!
Oh well. Once the laudanum-Red-Bull has kicked in, I may be able to sleep a bit. Dreamless, I hope.
August 9, 2012 at 8:31 pm
You all are gonna thumb me down like a motherfucker, but this is sick. Really sick. Endangered species? Housepets? Parrots? You want to know about parrots? That African Grey had the intellectual capacity of a 3 – 5 yr old child. Are we going to pretend all these animals lived happy lives then died of natural causes? Just because it looks pretty doesn’t mean it’s right. Kill animals for food, ok, but this brutality for the sake of some whimsicle nonsense is just fucking bullshit. What species would it take to draw some outrage here?
August 9, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Cornish hens?
August 9, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Well, you never see them in the grocery store anymore, so I can see why you’d say that. But if I ate one, I’d be glad to donate the inedible parts to “artistic” re-purposing.
August 9, 2012 at 9:37 pm
My local Waldbaum’s always has them.
August 10, 2012 at 9:05 am
My local Kroger always has them in the frozen section.
As well as calf liver and rabbit. And sometimes even frog legs and young ducks.
Your move.
August 10, 2012 at 9:50 am
We have alligator sausage here. I like turtles.
August 10, 2012 at 6:58 pm
There were about 6 items on the menu at the restaurant tonight, and one of them was cornish hen. I didn’t have it, but I did raise my sweet tea vodka in a silent toast to you, Dark Sock. Because that was an excellent snappy comeback.
August 12, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Cornish pixies?
August 9, 2012 at 8:44 pm
I agree with you. It’s the artistic equivalent of a fur coat.
August 9, 2012 at 8:49 pm
Exactly, but without even the thin veneer of functionality.
August 9, 2012 at 9:10 pm
I agree with both of you. I’ve always been turned off by taxidermy in general, to me it’s just horrifying for some reason.
I’d like to state for the record that I am neither vegan or hippy – I’m just squicked out by corpses on display. It doesn’t matter to me if they’re animal or human. (There was a traveling science museum exhibit of plastinated human bodies that came here and gave me nightmares the whole time it was in town because they advertised it heavily on tv. *shudder*)
August 10, 2012 at 7:11 am
That Human Body display was great! Sorry it bothered you. I thought it would be gross but when I saw it at the LA fair, it was actually fascinating. By the way, I could never get into the medical field, but the plasticized bodies were just neat.
August 10, 2012 at 8:41 am
I saw ads for that exhibit when I was on vacation in Canada. It took me several days to realize IT WASN’T A JOKE!!
August 9, 2012 at 8:51 pm
I’m going to guess that there are enough zoo animals and exotic/regular pets and wild animals that die of disease or accidents or are euthanized in Europe to provide several dozen “clean” subjects per year for taxidermy without the need for an intercontinental animal killing spree.
August 9, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Stuffed animal corpses outside of a museum are creepy enough for me as it is.
August 9, 2012 at 9:01 pm
It’s easy to think so, but a little naive. Sick old diseased animals don’t tend to be very beautiful.
Just the other day, vandals broke into a zoo in Tasmania and tore the heads off about a dozen parrots. Maybe they wanted them for taxidermy.
August 9, 2012 at 9:15 pm
I think we can all agree that if those vandals were caught and mounted in some humiliating pose, it would be justice.
August 9, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Yes, I’m sure this artist could do stunning things with them.
August 10, 2012 at 4:47 am
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I have a parrot just like the beheaded doll statue one. He is blind and funny and clever and clownish and fabulous and affectionate and basically spends his life nestled into my shoulder. (Rescued from the wild as a blind baby, so also ethically sourced.)
They ARE beautifully done, but living parrots and cheetahs and hummingbirds are transcendent. Not kitsch or clever, but transcendent.
*sobs wildly*
August 10, 2012 at 6:44 pm
I want to hug you for a while.
August 9, 2012 at 9:08 pm
A lot of modern taxidermy artists have a policy of using animals which have died accidentally (e.g. roadkill) or from natural causes, and I believe that’s what we’re seeing here. Les Deux Garcons’ animal parts are ethically sourced according to Hi Fructose magazine.
August 9, 2012 at 10:05 pm
I’ve spent the past five weeks bottle-feeding a kitten that was dumped — umbilical still attached, but hastilly shredded — under our house by its mother while fireworks were going off in all the surrounding yards.
There were two, but one died at the end of the first week. By “ethical” standards, I could have had that dead kitten stuffed and mounted for my visual pleasure (it was pure white with such cute pink ears and toes…I cried hard when it succumbed to some congenital defect or natural flaw).
Just because an animal corpse is “ethically sourced” doesn’t make it any less horrific when made into a dust-catcher.
(The living kitten is thriving, although lacking any embellishment.)
August 9, 2012 at 9:18 pm
No thumbs down here; I am also disgusted by these, but then, even aside from having to repair animals damaged by humans, I respect my own animals, everybody else’s animals, any old animals whatsoever. No matter how well done, these … things … are macabre and tasteless.
August 9, 2012 at 9:27 pm
I forget sometimes we’re not total assholes here. I myself can go along for months being a complete asshole when suddenly I’ll see a tiara wearing puppy humping an ostrich egg, and my heart just breaks.
August 9, 2012 at 10:12 pm
I feel particularly sorry for the leopard. Such a strong fierce animal in a fucking hat and pink bow.
And while taxidermy is NOT appealing to me, I can at least tolerate the “regular” type (particularly if the animal was also used as food) better than this chopping up and reassembling asst. part stuff.
August 10, 2012 at 7:17 am
Agreed. Regular ‘ol taxidermy, or even “creative” taxidermy (e.g. creating a jackalope) just doesn’t rub me the wrong way the way this stuff does.
It just feels…really disrespectful to chop the head off of a parrot corpse and affix it to a precious moments figurine. The teddy/dog was especially distressing.
August 10, 2012 at 8:02 am
stephani9: I totally agree. I was humming along enjoying the exquisite wierdness, and stopped cold at the tiara-puppy-egg thing, where the squick just caught up with me hard.
August 10, 2012 at 1:13 am
I’m okay with discussing whether the animals were already dead or did they actually kill them for this, but it’s pointless to start arguing if they are tasteful or not. I like them (at least the pictures,) and personally have no problems with using dead bodies for whatever. I might even buy one someday.
I’m also on the naive side and hope that most taxidermists use naturally dead animals, because I see no point of killing animals just for it since taxidermy obviously isn’t that popular. But if there is even one idiot who pays for someone to kill him an animal just so he can stuff it, I hope he dies horribly.
tl;dr : Some like these, some don’t. People who kill animals for stupid reasons need to be stuffed and upcycled.
August 10, 2012 at 8:15 am
I apologize for getting all tedious and animal-rightsy when this isn’t the proper venue for it, but I work at a parrot sanctuary with over 500 parrots, and we’ve had over 700 desperate surrender requests since January which of course we can’t accommodate.
So I do have a bad idea of where this artist might get her parrots. Tireless background research by Kirsten at Hi-Fructose magazine notwithstanding.
Ironically, I’m driving to KY to attend a conference of avian veterinarians and had stopped halfway in MD for the night. Eight hours on the road, followed by a questionable crab cake and way too many drinks with something called “sweet tea vodka”, capped off by encountering a lone (live) lovebird in a glass case in the lobby of the crappy Ramada did not put me in a fun frame of mind to see this when I logged on for my nightly dose of regretsy humor.
I promise not to preach here again. Even if I do appear to get way more thumbs up than when I’m merely being hilarious…
August 9, 2012 at 9:40 pm
That’s not an African Grey…
August 9, 2012 at 9:50 pm
It better not be a Norwegian Blue or *that* is gonna start up again.
August 10, 2012 at 4:36 am
This is the African Grey in question. There are days when mine is very lucky not to find herself in the same situation.
August 10, 2012 at 4:59 am
Oh god you’ve set me off again. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
*runs around in horror*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzPiTwDE0bE&feature=related
August 10, 2012 at 5:22 am
You’re right, there’s not one here. There was one on the site which I was stupid enough to go look at. I referenced it because in the absence of chimps or dolphins, it was the highest-level intelligence animal there.
You can tell by the way they can drive a perfectly sane human being crazy.
August 10, 2012 at 9:03 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 10, 2012 at 10:03 am
Ignorance really is bliss.
August 10, 2012 at 9:15 am
The bulldog teddy bear is very upsetting to me. You can tell he was somebody’s old, beloved, loyal pet. And somebody just lopped off his head and stuck it on a teddy bear. I think that is grounds for a psychological review of the artist. He could be just a few short steps away from being a full-blown serial killer.
Roadkill squirrels and old bear pelts discovered in a storage unit – OK to taxidermy.
Pets, endangered species, and animals killed for the sake of it – not OK to taxidermy.
August 10, 2012 at 9:19 am
Or, I supposed an endangered species that died of natural causes, and taxidermied for educational purposes – maybe a museum – would be alright.
August 10, 2012 at 10:13 am
I’m very conflicted about taxidermy, but using long dead animals that were obtained through antique fairs and estate sales doesn’t make someone a potential serial killer.
But I hear you about using dogs. In fact, I specifically included that one because it bothered me so much. But my reaction led me to ask questions of myself:
• Why did some of these upset me and some not?
• Why can I eat meat and wear leather, but draw the line at using other parts of the animal in artwork?
• Would it be okay if someone stuffed and mounted a beloved pet they personally owned? What if that pet owner was also dead? If the taxidermy no longer has meaning to anyone, is it now just an object to be repurposed? Or should it be destroyed?
In the end, art is supposed to provoke strong emotions – even negative ones – so to me, this is a great success on a lot of levels.
August 10, 2012 at 10:43 am
Art and animal welfare….man, what other extremely polarizing topics can we add to the discussion?
Hobos? Anyone?
August 10, 2012 at 10:53 pm
I see where you’re going with this but I am NOT going debase my dead hobo collection in a giant hamster cage tableau. Not after that really giant ant farm lesson!
August 10, 2012 at 12:09 pm
It is still the lack of respect. Yes, everything becomes parts after death, of no use whatsoever to the original ‘occupant’. But the treatment of dead things is linked to how we treat living things ( that’s why we have laws about abusing human corpses) ‘The parrot was already dead, connects, psychologically, to ‘It’s JUST a parakeet’. The bottom line for a lot of folks is that if the use of a component of a live thing for impractical purposes is distressing to an individual, then yes, that person needs to rethink the acceptance of using ANY part of it. Horsehide seats in the Rolls Royce are luxurious and sophisticated , but eating horsemeat is gross? Excuse me, but ….
August 10, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Estate sales? Note to self: Time to hang on to Great-Grandmother’s beloved taxidermied cat (named Flossie, died at 18, very white and fluffy but apparently horrible-tempered), even though it creeps me the heck out whenever I forget what’s in the red box in the bottom of the cedar chest and-OHGOD.
August 11, 2012 at 11:15 pm
I am also conflicted with this art form. I think the reason my leather bag doesn’t bother me is because it doesn’t look like the soul of the animal is trapped inside an eternally still sculpture, silently screaming for help through its unblinking glass eyeballs. It wasn’t manufactured to look like another living being – its just a bag. But, realistically, it is only marginally less heinous than taxidermy. Maybe even more? Truth, sister.
It is curious – what makes us draw the line? Is there even be any logic or philosophy behind what makes us decide whether or not certain things re acceptable? Just one of those funny things about human perception, I guess.
And I don’t really think these guys are serial killers… I was being hyperbolic. Any time 4-torso’d deer are involved, I use hyperbole.
August 12, 2012 at 1:34 pm
I think the line between “upsetting” and “not upsetting” is the odd difference between “pet” and “not pet” in the eyes of most people.
Having leather shoes, belt, jacket, etc…or a moose head on the wall in the den…wouldn’t bother most people because belts, shoes, and jackets don’t have a face and could be any fabric, really. Most people don’t have strong childhood connections/subconcious affiliations with moose – so the head could be any wild animal or non-pet animal, really.
Things like bird heads, dog fetuses, and various cats might stir up emotions based on subconcious feelings of right and wrong, family (dogs, cats, pet birds) and non-family (“wild” animals). To kill family feels wrong. To see some random animal dead or to wear leather doesn’t feel wrong.
It’s interesting to press personal boundries based on limits we can’t always see or name, as Helen stated.
August 13, 2012 at 4:22 pm
I dunno… I feel bad when I see a random dead animal. Even if I know it was the result of possums fighting each other for territory and therefore “natural causes”. I felt especially sick when said mostly decapitated possum was on the floor of the garage.
August 10, 2012 at 10:17 am
@stephani9, if someone snapped the head off a parrot to glue it on to a statue, I would share your outrage. But according to the artists, everything they use comes from antique fairs and old estates and collections. These animals have been dead for many, many years.
I’m not crazy about taxidermy, but once the animal has been stuffed and mounted, I can’t get outraged over someone else coming along and modifying it.
August 10, 2012 at 10:33 am
Oh, I agree with re-purposing something which has been long dead. But why should we take the artist’s word for it? It’s in her interest to lie just to keep animal nuts like me off her back. Also, I can’t get past the fact that long dead taxidermied animals LOOK long dead. Fur and feathers fade and degrade over time, and get eaten by insects and rodents. Those pieces are TOO brilliantly colored and TOO perfect to be some antique flea market finds. But no, lacking a full investigation beyond “hey artist, did’ya get all your animals from ethical sources?”, we can’t know for sure. All I can do is look at circumstantial evidence – the too perfect specimens, and my anecdotal experience – knowledge of what commonly happens to the legions of unwanted parrots, and draw my own conclusions about the collection as a whole. Sorry if it offends anyone.
August 10, 2012 at 10:59 am
That’s actually kind of silly. Taxidermists do not always kill the animals they work with. And if they are repurposing these pieces to make new artwork, it stands to reason that they would refurbish them.
I don’t like taxidermy very much, but I have no reason to believe these two guys are on a killing spree, wiping out everything from old bulldogs to foxes to piglets. I mean, look, if they were specializing in parakeets for instance, you could question if they were raising them for that purpose. But zebras? Calfs? An Ibex? On what safari do you hunt Cheetahs and puppies?
Circumstantial evidence and anecdotal evidence do not make great cases.
August 10, 2012 at 11:14 am
I have no problem agreeing to disagree, but I consider taking the profit-making artist’s word for anything as equally silly. Why are we loath to treat it with the same level of skepticism with which we regard the claims of chinese resellers and Balinese boat repurposers?
August 10, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Profit? What profit? Do you know how expensive it is to fly all over the world to kill exotic animals? That shit adds up. Plus you have to go to all those farms to knock off cows and piglets, and then you got to ship them back to France. Although they probably drive the refrigerated trucks themselves so they can stop at animal shelters to find aging bulldogs.
August 10, 2012 at 7:04 pm
You’re absolutely right. Her dry cleaning bills alone must be staggering.
August 10, 2012 at 11:20 am
I have a friend who works with feathers in her artwork, and often buys vintage hats to get feathers for her designs. You would be surprised how well pelts and feathers hold up over time if well taken care of.
August 10, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Talented taxidermists can restore old, beaten up pieces to “like new” condition.
August 10, 2012 at 10:55 pm
There are lots of really old fur garments and hats, etc with feathers that still look good…
August 10, 2012 at 5:58 pm
I don’t know if you’re right or just outraged but I really admire your courage.
August 9, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Well, if Hi Fructose magazine says it’s true….
August 9, 2012 at 11:48 pm
They also said these are “whimsically blah-blah-blah….”
August 9, 2012 at 9:48 pm
I would join the Men’s Club that had these on the walls!
August 10, 2012 at 5:50 am
There was a gay joke worked in there, right?
August 9, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 9, 2012 at 10:42 pm
there is a restaurant in a more rural area of florida that has lots of fucked up taxidermy. its called clark’s fish camp. and just as it has lots of dead things on the wall/ceiling/fuckingeverywhere, they also serve exotic meats.
also:
not sure if you’ve ever noted the fuckery in damien hirsts work, like “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (lolwut). just a preserved shark in a square tank.
also:
crappytaxidermy.com is a fucking golden site.
August 10, 2012 at 1:37 am
I think I’m going to have nightmares of those little goats chasing me…
August 10, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Let’s be honest, they aren’t going to catch you.
August 10, 2012 at 4:28 am
I love taxidermy, but most of these aren’t to my taste — they’re trying too hard to be whimsical or surreal. But the porcelain figures with bird heads… I want them all!
August 10, 2012 at 5:37 am
Scrolling down I was trying to understand why this isn’t tagged as “Art”.
Then I realized it’s a fucking collection catalogue.
August 10, 2012 at 5:39 am
And then I realized I was wrong and since I was tricked this has to be art indeed. Also, in 20′ the cafeteria in my office building opens and the cure I’m looking for will be waiting for me there.
August 10, 2012 at 5:43 am
This makes me absolutely sick. There are some gorgeous teapots in there that are now completely ruined.
August 10, 2012 at 8:04 am
No one ever thinks about the teapots.
August 10, 2012 at 6:10 am
August 10, 2012 at 6:30 am
Unrelated but creepy. I sat down to check regretsy post vacation. My son clicks on the TV and I distinctly hear Clarabelle the Cows voice. Eerie, but still not as eerie as the teddy bear with the dog face….
August 10, 2012 at 7:03 am
I love these even though they are sad. I thinks it’s odd after looking at their site, no domestic cats. Yet they go through whatever trouble to procure the big cats for their art. Maybe they have lots of pet cats and can’t bear to stuff them?
August 10, 2012 at 8:43 am
A couple of those remind me of The Human Centipede. I’m gonna go throw up now.
August 10, 2012 at 8:58 am
These are bizarrely awesome. Want.
August 10, 2012 at 9:10 am
i think animals are just as sentient as us- even the very low intelligence ones! I love my pets but I defend this. If I can relish the exquisite flavor of a well-grilled steak, the outer bits are just as legit.
I doubt a bunch of artists found a way to kill a fucking tiger to make a sculpture. the best they could do is find one. there are many ways to fix flaws, you don’t have to kill a fresh one. animals are beautiful AND the grotesque is beautiful AND questionable taste is sorta beautiful too.
August 10, 2012 at 9:24 am
i’ll probably get thumbs down – it’s ok i can take it.
while i think these are done incredibly well, i still say ewwww. i don’t really enjoy taxidermy. before pictures i understand the use, but to me now it just seems a bit primitive, like trophy hunting. i’ve seen some really bad jobs and i always hate the ones in museums, but whatever. i guess if the animal died naturally or accidentally i’d rather see the fur used for a person in siberia to keep warm in winter, rather than as a whimsical statue. the artist did a great job capturing the beauty of the animals (minus the dog on the teddy bear – wtf) but the others are showing off the animals for the most part, but still, eewww for me.
lots of things in life serve no purpose and i get that and even own some, but these serve no purpose and leave me scratching my head. i just don’t get it.
August 10, 2012 at 9:31 am
When I was younger, my parents once took me to a party at one of their yuppie friend’s house. On the water, this McMansion was full of African taxidermy. I mean every. single. room. A zebra head over the TV, meerkats watching you pee, umbrellas in an elephant foot, all that.
The story was, they go on vacation to Africa every year. And they pay to go to a shooting range. And they pay to rent a gun, and for someone else to skin it, mount it, and ship it back to America. Because your rumpus room really needs an entire pride of lions. And they need to die, so you can have it.
What the fuck is wrong with people?
August 10, 2012 at 11:48 am
You are right. That is waaay sicker than anything here. You kill it and don’t eat it, just wrong.(I am assuming that you weren’t served lion casserole when you visited)?
August 10, 2012 at 11:21 am
If this sort of thing floats your boat, you might be interested in Erick Swenson. You can see his work here: http://www.talleydunn.com/artist/view/erick_swenson/22
It’s weird and I think he makes all his animals out of plastic.
August 10, 2012 at 2:22 pm
The Human Centre de Pompidou
August 10, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Nobody went for the Chuck Testa joke?
August 10, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Nope.
August 10, 2012 at 9:53 pm
I fucking love birds, I would risk my life to save my cockatiel’s, but hell yeah I’d get a weird taxidermy sculpture of her after she passes away. I think she would appreciate being immortalized as a ukelele-playing milkmaid, or stomping a miniature replica of Tokyo or something awesome like that.
August 11, 2012 at 4:18 am
I don’t know about your cockatiel, but my parents found theirs at their balcony last summer. After a year of being their kid and earning their trust (open cage and balcony doors) it left them by majestically flying out the door.
I didn’t worry about it. A few months earlier we’d come across the previous owner that the cockatiel had left last summer. Needless to say she had found it at her balcony two summers ago.
You getting taxidermy of her? Ha ha. We are all cockatiels’ bitches.
August 10, 2012 at 11:03 pm
When is someone going to cop to taxidermitizing that thing on Donald Trump’s head?
August 11, 2012 at 3:20 pm
I am surprised to find something like this as a post. Do we have a ghostwriter-poster lately…? Sure, it’s bizarre, but more on the creepy side of bizarre, not the comforting, dancing dror-bizarre.
August 11, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
August 11, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Why is it that I love these, and think they’re amazing, but the RC Cat-Copter makes me a sad panda?!
August 11, 2012 at 9:10 pm
I have this mental image of the artist, sitting upon a rotating dias in the center of a room filled with his work, wanking furiously beneath their collective glassy-eyed gaze.
August 13, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Christ on a cracker. I wouldn’t want to run into this dude in any dark alleys.