Over the past week or so we have been showing you pictures that I took during my visit to the Buckhorn museum in San Antonio, back in November 2004. This particular image sparked up a reaction in Richard Freeman's psyche, and he writes:"This display reminds me very much of the late lamented Potter's Museum of Curiosities on Bodmin Moor. If it had not been for Potter's Muesum of Curiosities at the Jamiaca Inn, Cornwall, I would never have joined he CFZ. I first came across Animals & Men in their gift shop.
Potter's was just the sort of old-school museum I love; a heterogenous collection of the weird and random. The main bulk of exhibits were odd taxidermy tableaux. These included stuffed kittens getting married, guinea pigs playing cricket, squirrels playing cards, and frogs in a playground. The display also featured freaks of nature like two headed lambs, as well as odd unconnected things like the head of a maneating crocodile, and a model church made of feathers.
Several years ago when the owners retired, the collection was broken up and sold off. No attempt was made to save it. If this had been a nonsensical collection modern art then hundreds of spinless, bleating pseudo intellectuals of the sort one sees oozing across your TV screen on 'Late Review' would have been falling over themselves to preserved it.
Makes you vomit with rage doesn't it!"
As I recall, Damien Hirst, hearing of the imminent sale, offered a LOT of money to buy the whole lot, but was apparently too late to stop the auction. As it turned out, the owners didn't realise as much money as Hirst had offered.
ReplyDeleteI was one of the last people to see it, having visited on the afternoon of its last day of opening.