Man Vs. Wild

John Vettese sees what develops: Henry Horenstein's "Looking at Animals"

by John Vettese

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Published: Apr 13, 2010

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Philadelphia has Henry Horenstein in some unlikely juxtapositions this spring.

First, the tail end of the Boston photographer's "SHOW" at Gallery 339 — a bawdy, campy exploration of the burlesque world, done in pointed black and white — ran up against the opening of "Looking at Animals," a more family-appropriate exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences collecting sepia abstracts from the zoo, the farm and his own backyard.

Striking perhaps a starker contrast than nudes-and-tattoos versus antlers-and-hooves images (both depict bodies, after all), the Academy hangs Horenstein's work alongside specimens from its collection, juxtaposing what artists and scientists find interesting in the animals they study.

Upon entering the dimly lit second-floor gallery, one of the first photos to stand out from the left wall is Giant Pacific Octopus. Shot in fluid soft focus, its tentacles wrap and fill most of the frame in overlapping mounds; in the top third, we see the reticent animal's eye protruding, and the blackness of the ocean (or aquarium, perhaps) backdropping it.

The warm image of this Pacific octopus sits next to a Plexiglas cylinder lit in iridescent yellows, blues and greens, containing "Walter" — a full-body octopus specimen that's been at the museum since the 1960s. Floating in an alcohol solution, Walter is crumpled and lifeless, a rubbery tangled mass bearing little resemblance to the resplendent creature depicted in Horenstein's image.

The dichotomy is even stronger when you compare how the artist and scientists see giraffes. Both avoid making a thing of the neck, which is refreshing. Horenstein's Smoky Giraffe hones in on three of the animal's muscular legs, bunched together like a spotted vase. It puts the knobby knees in the forefront, raising the question of how these seemingly diminutive joints are able to carry the monumental creature above them.

The Academy's giraffe specimen deconstructs the animal altogether. On a frame of shelved wooden pallets, an entire giraffe skeleton is broken apart and arranged tidily into boxes; leg bones over here, torso bones over there, skull looking outward. While the octopus could at least be seen as a once-living creature, this looks more like the aftermath of a paleontological dig.

This isn't meant to draw some kind of distinction where the artist is the aesthete while the scientists are dry and clinical. To be sure, Horenstein's Domestic Great Dane, starring his own pet dog, depicts an awkwardly framed, vaguely blurred tongue flapping as the image's centerpiece. Even for dog people, this has to be unsightly; I'm much more interested in the neatly arranged, lovingly boxed collection of Canis lupus familiaris skulls it sits next to.

Elsewhere, the presentation of specimens holds as much aesthetic appeal as their adjoining photographs. A flamingo skull is inset in the wall, behind an ornate oval frame. It is bathed in hot pink light, with a thin aquarium of brine shrimp — the bird's dinner in a previous life — flittering in front, a multilayered display functioning as a wall hanging.

The skeletal elephant hoof, an Academy specimen since 1910, looms large and imposing, almost like a sculpture; impressively, Horenstein's photo (focusing on the no-less-imposing living version, pictured, p. 22) appears to be printed at actual size.

Turning to the sandhill crane, we once again see the photo and specimen studying different features. Horenstein looks at the curving neck against a gray background, its soft feathers dipping to and fro. Abstracted in this way, it looks like an aerial view of a river, snaking through a gorge. Next to it, the Academy hung a massive 5-foot wing, outstretched in a large frame with feathers popping in yellow, blue and rusty orange colors amid a patchwork of grays and whites.

The juxtapositions throughout "Looking at Animals" draw a distinction between how the two camps see the world, but the parting view of the crane's wing makes it clear: Science is no less majestic than art.

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

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