Glacial Errata, No. 30

One: The Bunny Museum

During the Eaton Fire in January, The Bunny Museum, located in Altadena, was destroyed. Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski’s collection of all things bunny had grown to over 60,000 objects, including everything from tiny kitschy tchotchkes to Rose Parade floats. All but a handful of these were destroyed during those terrible days. There is currently a GoFundMe to help rebuild it.

There is something about the destruction of a museum that is, to me, acutely devastating, since a museum is always more than the sum of its parts. While the individual items in a collection may themselves be invaluable, there’s something about the building, the arrangement, the curatorial impulse that is also lost. All these elements, the things that tie the individual artworks or objects together into some kind of matrix and context, can be, in their own way, even harder to replace than the already irreplaceable art itself.

Two: The University of Vienna Ceiling Paintings

In some ways, destruction itself can become the story of art. In Vienna’s Leopold Museum, there is a room dedicated to the University of Vienna ceiling paintings by Gustav Klimt. Rejected by the university as being pornographic, the three large paintings—Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence—were never installed. Eventually, they were seized by the Nazis and kept in Schloss Immendorf for safe-keeping during the war. But when the Nazis abandoned the castle, they wired it with explosives, and the three paintings were presumed destroyed. (There is some debate on exactly what happened to them, however.)

Now, the Leopold Museum displays black-and-white photographs of the ceiling paintings, which act as a sharp and unsettling contrast to the vibrancy of the rest of the work on display. The lack of color, the lack of brushwork or the sense of the tactility of the original work—all of that is brought sharply into focus by the photographic reproductions, as you both glimpse the power of the work as it might have been, and feel its acute loss before you.

Three: The Library of Alexandria

The destruction of great work is foundational component of how we understand history, after all. From the earliest ages we’re taught of the Library of Alexandria, a seemingly limitless collection of all the world’s knowledge, burned and destroyed.

The lost museum becomes a place into which you can project anything, an almost Edenic symbol of a more perfect time, when knowledge was complete, and which we now long for in these fallen times.

Four: Notre-Dame

But I am not a person who sentimentalizes destruction. While I am fascinated by ruin, I believe we nonetheless have an ethical obligation to protect and preserve the great works of art, the great libraries, and the great museums on which we so heavily depend.

As much as Notre-Dame is a tourist trap and a cliche, its near-destruction by fire in 2019 was horrifying to me, and it was a relief to see it restored and repaired so quickly and with such care.

Amidst careless and the unconcerned, the book-burners and those who’d gleefully destroy our past to imperil our future, we must always be the ones who preserve and care for what is threatened.

Five: The Museum of Jurassic Technology

In early July, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, in Culver City, caught fire (perhaps due to arson). Due to quick action by the museum’s founder, David Wilson, and his family, the fire was put out before it destroyed the entire museum.

The gift shop was destroyed, and the rest of the museum suffered a great deal of smoke damage. As a result, the museum is currently closed as they attempt to repair the damage. There is much more information here at Lawrence Weschler’s blog.

I can think of few spaces on this earth more incredible, more likely to spark wonder and joy, and to challenge what you know and how you know it, than the MJT. If you have ever been, you know exactly what I mean. If you have not, you owe it to yourself to make a trip once they’ve reopened. It is like no other place on this earth, and the news of the fire is heartbreaking.

This newsletter you’re reading is free, but if you’ve been enjoying it and are so moved, you can donate to the Museum of Jurassic Technology to help them cover costs during this time.

Their online giftshop is still open, and you can also buy things there to help them out during this time. And definitely, if you’re in LA or plan to be so, make an appointment to visit the museum once they reopen on August 8.

If you do donate, drop me a line to let me know and I’ll match your donation. (Same goes for the Bunny Museum, if you’d like to support them as well.)