The Newark Museum has a wonderful new presentation — running from 1009-2010 called “Insecta Fantasia” — where bugs are manipulated in aesthetic ways to help bring understanding to nature and history.

For her project, Insecta Fantasia, Angus uses two adjoining rooms in the Ballantine House to create an installation composed of thousands of insects pinned directly to the walls in repeating patterns. In addition, she employs objects from the Museum’s decorative arts collection–small tables, cabinets, glass domes and other objects, on which she will display additional collections of insects. The resulting installation references traditional wallpaper, while at the same time invoking the Victorian aesthetic of taste, clutter and exotica from an age in which travel, exploration and scientific study were immensely popular.

Because The Newark Museum has wide-ranging collections in the areas of both science and art, it has long been the Museum’s priority to find new and innovative ways to bring these two disciplines together in exhibitions and public programs. Insecta Fantasia will be a perfect synthesis of science, art, and history. It will both focus visitors on insect diversity and enable them to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of Angus’ artistic expression. It will also help people understand the richness and immensely interesting variety in forms, size and color in the insect world while bringing them back to a time where collecting, mounting, identifying and classifying insects was a common pastime. Through this installation, visitors will have the opportunity to learn both the myth and the science of insects in an exhibition that intersects the fields of art, history and entomology.

We appreciate the modern-day celebration of bugs, but we also hope these memory displays will also in some way be tempered by the real devastation insects have had on the modernization of the Old West as well as the current dangers they pose to people and crops as carriers of disease and pestilence.

9 Comments

  2. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    It definitely sounds like a challenging display, Gordon. One would have to have a strong stomach for seeing dead insects pinned to a museum house wall.

  4. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    It does seem like a curious display, Nicola. Do we really want these sorts of things pinned to our bedroom walls? Yikes!

  5. I like the idea and the premise the individual making up the whole – and the mosaic effect appeal to me on an artistic level. Hence my interest in the overall picture.
    Never on my bedroom wall ………………

  6. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    That’s excellent insight, Nicola. Right on target!

  8. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Ha! That’s an elegant way of putting it, Katha. It is an acquired taste.

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