LENA HERZOG
[PHOTOGRAPHER]

“ONE THING THAT I ALWAYS WAS AFRAID TO DO IS SORT OF NICE WORK. I DON’T WANT TO DO NICE WORK.”
Things coming to Europe from America, circa 1500:
Purple parrot feathers
Moose antlers
Sacrificial urns
Tropical butterflies
Dinosaur bones considered to be the bones of giants

Back in 1594, in the very heart of the period we will be considering in the pages that follow, Sir Francis Bacon, while prescribing the essential apparatus for “a compleat and consummate Gentleman” in his Gesta Grayorum, suggested that in attempting to achieve “within a small compass a model of the universal made private,” any such would-be magus would almost certainly want to compile “a goodly huge Cabinet, wherein whatsoever the Hand of Man by exquisite Art or Engine, hath made rare in Stuff, Form, or Motion, whatsoever Singularity, Chance and the shuffle of things hath produced, whatsoever Nature hath wrought in things that want Life, and may be kept, shall be sorted and included.”

Read the entire interview here (subscription required): http://www.believermag.com/issues/201106/?read=interview_herzog

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