Natural Histories

Unearthly archival images from the American Museum of Natural History. Neatly divided into four species: Dioramas, Education, Exhibitions, Exhibition Preparation.

Weirdly, any/all of these would do for my wedding invitation.

The AMNH images share cosmic b&w space with Evidence, the radical photographic appropriation project published in 1977 by Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan (RIP, recently). Somehow gaining access to the archives of more than 70 corporations, labs, and government agencies, Mandel and Sultan put together an enigmatic collection of arrestingly beautiful, boring and strange images without the help of explanatory text. Sequence, authorship, intention? Who -- after all -- needs it.

                              

Ditto on the wedding thing.

BOOK (nice article)

SULTAN OBIT

SULTAN NPR