LENA HERZOG: That’s because fetuses seem to be oxymorons, they actually are very much alive in the work of Ruysch and his followers, because somehow mortality and immortality, things that you can’t imagine being simultaneous, actually happened, because they are immortal forever. All their siblings have long been dead. Their siblings’ children, grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, they’ve all been dead, and yet they are—they have made it and in fact as a photographer I feel an extraordinary kinship with the archivists and the cabinet makers. Do what Munch called paint them in the frieze of life. So they preserve a moment that’s meant to perish and they send it to us like a message in a bottle. LAWRENCE WESCHLER: Literally a message in a bottle. LENA HERZOG: Really—literally a message in a bottle, to us. And we go back and meet it halfway if we have our eyes open and strong enough hearts and we can look at it and think about all those things. Two years ago today, Lena Herzog, photographer and wife of Werner Herzog, came to LIVE to talk to Lawrence Weschler about her book Lost Souls. Established in the early 18th century, Russia’s first Kunstkammer triggered a profound debate over religious and existential questions. The Orthodox Church, faced with a collection of Cyclopes, Siamese twins, and creatures that looked like lions or leprechauns, could not justify nature’s unsuccessful attempts at human life and deemed their souls lost: they could not go to heaven, hell or limbo–they were dead on arrival and had nowhere to go. Herzog photographed these lost souls. Watch/listen to the event here…

LENA HERZOG: That’s because fetuses seem to be oxymorons, they actually are very much alive in the work of Ruysch and his followers, because somehow mortality and immortality, things that you can’t imagine being simultaneous, actually happened, because they are immortal forever. All their siblings have long been dead. Their siblings’ children, grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, they’ve all been dead, and yet they are—they have made it and in fact as a photographer I feel an extraordinary kinship with the archivists and the cabinet makers. Do what Munch called paint them in the frieze of life. So they preserve a moment that’s meant to perish and they send it to us like a message in a bottle.

LAWRENCE WESCHLER: Literally a message in a bottle.

LENA HERZOG: Really—literally a message in a bottle, to us. And we go back and meet it halfway if we have our eyes open and strong enough hearts and we can look at it and think about all those things.

Two years ago today, Lena Herzog, photographer and wife of Werner Herzog, came to LIVE to talk to Lawrence Weschler about her book Lost Souls. Established in the early 18th century, Russia’s first Kunstkammer triggered a profound debate over religious and existential questions. The Orthodox Church, faced with a collection of Cyclopes, Siamese twins, and creatures that looked like lions or leprechauns, could not justify nature’s unsuccessful attempts at human life and deemed their souls lost: they could not go to heaven, hell or limbo–they were dead on arrival and had nowhere to go. Herzog photographed these lost souls. Watch/listen to the event here…
Posted 11 months ago
Tagged: Lena Herzog, Lawrence Weschler, LIVE from the NYPL, NYPL, Photography, .