Guest Blog: Dead or Alive - MAD Museum Exhibit in NYC

From Gothic style and fashion blog, The Courtesan Macabre:

Is there beauty in death? At the Museum of Arts and Design, thirty artists attempt to prove this true. Through sculptures, installations, the works in this exhibit are made from items once living, now dead.

Some of have re-purposed bones into new objects. Some have made use of the decorative patterns and silhouettes of insects into beautiful decor motifs. Usually, an exhibit with such a theme provokes artists who create for shock value, or are politically abstract. Instead, the actual craft and design of these pieces are so well thought out, many could even be functional.

Feathers have been a prominent embellishment in fashion in current seasons, and fits perfectly into this exhibit. The iridescent wings of butterflies take on the silky sheen of many taffeta ballgown, its mural giving elegance to a room.

A motorcycle of engineered bones has the edge and style that would make the American Chopper Boys Drool. The delicate manipulations of beetles in a Victorian home setting might convince you it was an aristocratic estate piece.

The exhibit runs until October 24, 2010.

Photos by Stanzie Tooth