Artist Talk

I attended Melissa Milgrom's talk, Adventures in Taxidermy, for my artist talk. I was skeptical going in because I have always found taxidermy very creepy. The way the animal's eyes watch you while in poses that are a bit too unnatural. There is a sort of uncanny valley.  The more realistic they are, the closer they get to creepy, and paradoxically unnatural.
Milgrom's main point was to address this common belief and hope to change people's minds about the art of taxidermy. For starters, just like any art, there are good and bad examples of works. The best taxidermists take extensive care to replicate their subject exactly. They will observe their specimen alive before killing it. Milgrom was somewhat hazy about whether or not they would kill the animals, and which animals were recently deceased before being preserved. She said they never would kill an endangered species and that taxidermists are in fact animal lovers.
Milgrom is a photographer that gained an appreciation for taxidermy while photographing to a book about the subject. She kept emphasizing that it was an art, again and again.
She discussed some artists that used taxidermy in absurd and unrealistic ways, such as a cow hanging by a noose. This was the only part of the talk I found as "art" since it creates a feeling that isn't inherent to the animal.
One interesting point  brought up was that our society is in nature much less today that ever before, and taxidermy may become more popular since nature is becoming a novelty. While this is true, I think this won't overcome the fact that taxidermy has a negative connotation in the public eye.

I still don't have much of an appreciation for this art, the taxidermists are just freezing a moment of what can be found in nature. The natural beauty is lost to me when the corpse of an animal is put up on display, it is entirely unnatural and if its art then its an art of illusion. Art usually requires creating something, or viewing something creatively, taxidermists just reuse what nature has already created. They are not artists in my opinion. Milgrom is passionate but I don't think she is in the majority, taxidermy will likely dwindle as a hobby or "art" form. It has a negative public view and is only effective in art if it makes a statement about something outside of the stuffed animal.