Lucas Revives a Victorian Spook Show
In 2021 the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art acquired the Terry and Deborah Borton collection of magic lantern slides. The medium, a precursor to motion pictures, consists of analog slide shows accompanied by funny, spooky, or edifying narration. The Borton collection includes not only slides but original paintings, narration scripts, gaslit projectors, and advertising ephemera. On Oct. 11th the Lucas and the Philosophical Research Society, Los Feliz, will present a (sold-out) performance of "The Spectre Pig" (about 1902–1903), the story of a butchered pig out for revenge. The slides are by Joseph Boggs Beale (1841–1926), an American master of this form of narrative art. Though tickets are no longer available, the performance by lanternist Terry Borton and pianist Elizabeth Joy Kelly will be recorded.
Shown, several of Beale's slides.
Comments
It's a miracle anyone survived in the candlelight era. Look at that candle out of kilter.
A variety of exhibits hosted by the Met in the last few years have shown up in my Youtube feed. Damn, that museum's special temporary displays come off like the big leagues, baby. By contrast, too many of LACMA's shows seem more appropriate for the western branch of Hauser and Wirth in downtown LA.
LACMA has been inspired by the wrong Met in NYC. It's not things like Josiah McElheny's "chandeliers" that should be on display, it's the stuff inspired by the other Met.
--- J. Garcin