This interest in fantasy and hybrid creatures is a key part of one of the areas of the museum, the House of Shards, which gets its name from the assortment of shards of glass and pottery that cover the entire outside of the building. Right: Detail, Ole Worm’s cabinet of curiosities, ”Museum Wormianum”, 1655. Image: Typ 525.99.461, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Left: Detail, Ferrante Imperato, “Dell’ historia naturale,” Napoli, 1599. What I particularly like about these images of historic curiosity cabinets is how much reflection one can find in the Abita Mystery House, such as specimens of the natural world. This quest for the bizarre and macabre would also take root in later sideshow carnivals and freak shows. The collection of authentic and fabricated objects was an important aspect of these early curiosity collections because each collector wanted to have the most strange, and rare in their collection. It was filled with preserved animals, mineral collections, ethnographic objects, as well as automata, and fantasy items, such as a narwhal tusk that was presented as being from a unicorn. Another well documented historic collection was that of Ole Worm (Olaus Wormius 1588-1654). Often these collections would include shelving and cupboards filled to the brim with items such as books, collections of plants, preserved animals, and other nature specimens. A key goal of these collections was to display the wealth and knowledge of the owner by presenting the world through categorized objects. One of the first of these on pictorial record was Ferrante Imperato, Dell’Historia Naturale (1599). So for me, one of the ways to engage with the display in Abita is to think of it in the tradition of the grand cabinet of curiosities, or wunderkammer. These private encyclopedic collections were popularized in Renaissance Europe and influenced the development of modern museums. While the Abita Mystery House can be seen as a contemporary folk art installation that engages the senses, as an art historian, I also couldn’t help thinking how much it reminded me of historical curiosity cabinets. I was really hopeful that I might even come across a dance sequence involving Jessica Lange, but I digress…. Almost every square inch of the museum is covered with an assortment of objects: a comb collection, paint by numbers, license plates, cell phones, bottle caps, signage, and fantasy composites such as alligators on a bike. Walking through the museum, I kept thinking that at any moment I might come across an episode of American Horror in full production. The museum is an explosion of sites: an amalgam of garage sale, second-hand, and one of a kind hand-made objects, that are both fanciful and unsettling. Over the years other buildings were added including an airstream overtaken by aliens, a creole cottage turned into a hot-sauce shrine, and the house of shards. He began the project in 1995 at the site of a vintage gas station. The museum also known as the UCM (“you see ‘em”) is the creation of artist and collector Jon Preble. While touring around Louisiana I came across the Abita Mystery House, located in Abita Springs. If there is a quirky museum, weird restaurant or random site, I just can’t help myself… it’s a bit of an obsession really… Road trips are one of the forms of travel that I really enjoy because they give you the freedom to explore off the beaten track destinations, such as a funky roadside attraction.
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