Each table simultaneously becomes its own autonomous art piece and teaching tool, attempting at both but accomplishing neither. The juxtaposition of these artists together creates a new form of logic based on the dialogue they are having with each other, where one informs the others. Additionally, each utilizes alternative forms of presentation styles, which creates an interesting transition into the context of the didactic display tables. Regardless of its inaccuracies, this alternate reality had an interior logic and dignity, which created an aura that perpetuated the non-truth for centuries.Įach artist in the show has great interest in the use of their practice as an avenue to higher learning and discovery. Dürer used his skills as a craftsman to describe something he knew nothing about, thus creating a non-truth5. If a science fair alludes to the novice scientist and the craft fair references the skilled craftsman, the marriage of the two is meant to suggest a symbiotic relationship that exists when art is used as a tool for research and advancement. The alternative modes of arrangement are meant to reference the matrimony of a craft fair and a science fair. These tables act as display cases for sculptures, books, drawings, documents, and other art objects. Each of the presentation tables in the gallery surveys the properties of a different fictitious phylum. Dürer’s Rhinoceros functions as a didactic arena of non-truths. This presentation of non-realities through art-making and pseudoscience, is the ambition of this show. When Dürer’s Rhinoceros was placed in an academic context, his status as an artist was changed to scientist, thereby allowing his practice to be an authenticated source of learning that was, in reality, misleading. This image was widely disseminated along with naturalist text, and used as a form of reference in learned communities. At the same time, he assumes the role of the educator. His form of scientific practice is flawed, considering he has engaged in a game of observational telephone. He uses his craft to articulate and realize something that he cannot yet see. First, Dürer becomes the novice scientist. Portraying this animal without having seen it, and then making the image easily reproducible does two things. At the time of its release, there hadn’t been a rhinoceros in Europe since the 3rd century, and the next was not seen again until 1579 in Spain4. What Dürer did was to create a myth around a faux specimen. Despite these inaccuracies, Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut was still being copied two hundred years after its production, and it has been characterized as one of the most influential animal pictures of its time.3 None of these features are present on the actual animal. It has a small twisted horn on its back, with scaly legs and sawlike rear quarters. He depicts an animal covered with armor and rivets. Based on a second hand description, Dürer created an inaccurate version of his subject. His rendition was based on the report of an unknown artist who claimed to have seen an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon in 1515. It is said that the rhinoceros is fast, impetuous and cunning.”2 Īlbrecht Dürer never actually saw a rhinoceros in his lifetime. The rhinoceros is so well-armed that the elephant cannot harm it. The elephant is afraid of the rhinoceros, for, when they meet, the rhinoceros charges with its head between its front legs and rips open the elephant’s stomach, against which the elephant is unable to defend itself. It has a strong pointed horn on the tip of its nose, which it sharpens on stones. It is the size of an elephant but has shorter legs and is almost invulnerable. It is the colour of a speckled tortoise1, and is almost entirely covered with thick scales. “On the first of May in the year 1513 AD, the powerful King of Portugal, Manuel of Lisbon, brought such a living animal from India, called the rhinoceros.
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