The Dead Zoo - Taxum Totem
National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. April 2009 - April 2010 - Touring
The Taxum Totem's larger than life and richly hued animal portraits re-awaken the Dead Zoo’s inhabitants - releasing them from the dusty confines of their Victorian glass museum cabinets into the light of a contemporary world, set free from their taxonomic rank and taxidermal stasis.
Grimes’s images present a gallery of new animal celebrities, not posed in studio shots but photographed in situ in the museum. Looked at carefully, the museum’s architecture, its tiered structure, the cast ironwork, the glass cases are here traced and reflected in their staring eyes.
The Dead Zoo - Taxum Totem project is one of six exhibitions based on the collections of the Natural History Museum in Dublin. The body of photographs, drawings, texts and sound works were made during Grimes’s artist-in-residence year at the Natural History Museum, then celebrating its 150th anniversary.
Taxum Totem. 50 Chromogenic prints on silicone. 36x26in (92x66cm) & 72x48in (183x122cm).
Primate Grid. 30 framed archival inkjet prints. 36x26in (92x66cm) & 72x48in (183x122cm).
Scala Naturae. 6 Light boxes. (36x26in (92x66cm).
Editions of 1. Collection of National Museum of Ireland & Morris Collection, Detroit.
Touring 2012 - 2013
The Dead Zoo - Taxum Totem is part of the research project: Dignified Kings Play Chess On Fine Green Silk.
A full-colour limited edition publication accompanies the exhibition, with texts by Martin Kemp, Karl Grimes, David Norris, Stephanie McBride and Nigel Monaghan. Available from bookshops at the National Museum of Ireland, Wellcome Collection, London, Gallery of Photography Dublin, Deyrolle Paris. and Amazon.com ISBN 978-0-9552388-3-3
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