Alludes to the Aztecs classification of the world that combined animal, plant and man under categories like: ‘things that glisten.’ It reminds us to fight the tyranny of the taxonomy, to fight our own classifying impulses.
In a memorial service for one of our founding associates, cigars, food, money, and a healthy shot of whiskey were used to conjure up Papa Legba, the spirit guardian of the Crossroads. Incantation derives from Middle English, from the Anglo-French enchanter, reminding us that the casting of spells … Continue readingICI Technic: Incantation
Haagensen, Erling and Henry Lincoln. The Templars’ Secret Island: The Knights, the Priest and the Treasure (2002) ICI Shelf: Paracelsus Last Line: “The Prize may be greater than we know.” ICI History: Today at the ICI — Twitter Feed (12-31-12)
Hill, Douglas and Pat Williams. The Supernatural (1965) ICI Shelf: Paraclesus First Line: “In 1956 Life magazine introduced some traditional but dressed up American ghost stories with the caption: “The old beliefs die hard, even in this Skeptical age.”” ICI History: Today at the ICI … Continue readingLIBRARY SHELF: The Supernatural
ACCESSION #: ICI 21527 Title: “Hussein Captured,” L.A. Times (12/13/03) Description: Newspaper front page describing the discovery of Hussein in a “spider hole.” Location: Ephemera Kabinett Discussion: In nature, the trapdoor spider hides in his hole-nest until it leaps out to capture unsuspecting prey. In the … Continue readingEPHEMERA KABINETT: LA Times with story on Saddam Hussein’s Spider Hole
This permanent memorial at Chimayo, New Mexico evokes the language of the roadside shrine. The permanence of the ceramic calla lilies is undermined by a thin sheet of cellophane wrapped around the bouquet. Its haphazard embrace borrows the language of temporary memorials, those placeholders for … Continue readingFlowers at Chimayo
ACCESSION #: ICI 21811
What happens when we apply western constructs to non-western archives?When the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún set out to record the world of the Aztecs in 1540, he complained about “hidden meanings that are unrecognizable.” In Book X of his 12 volume Florentine Codex, written in native Nahua with sections translated to Spanish, he … Continue readingFlorentine Codex … Continue readingFlorentine Codex
Sebald, Dean and Warburg explore the power of the Archive.The Archive figured prominently in the ICI’s third title, Searching for Sebald: Photography After W. G. Sebald. In her essay that considered the work of Tacita Dean and Joseph Beuys through the prose fictions of W. G. Sebald, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes compares Dean’s Floh (2001) … Continue readingMnemosyne Atlas … Continue readingMnemosyne Atlas