Stuffed Stuff

An Arrangement of Skins

This is the second photo I’ve put up from an exhibition by Huang Yong Ping at Nottingham Contemporary. It’s an elephant, life sized, lying prostrate in the middle of the gallery, and rendered in amazing detail from the skins of another animal entirely (I can’t remember which - maybe buffalo?). It’s part of an installation called Marché de Punya, which has lots of allegorical meanings that you can look up somewhere else.

Instead, my question for all you taxidermyphiles out there is, is it taxidermy? In a discussion elsewhere, a friend said she didn’t think it was, because it wasn’t actually made from elephant skin. It doesn’t even pretend to be - you can see the stitches all over it. During our discussion, I suggested it was botched taxidermy, where skins are cobbled together in strange, marvellous and often disturbing combinations. 

But what actually is taxidermy? All it means is “an arrangement of skins”. In which case, this clearly is taxidermy. It’s the skins of some sort of cow-like beasts, arranged over a frame to look like an elephant. But then, where do you stop? Today I’m carrying the skin of another cow, this time arranged to look like a bag. It’s my bag. But is it taxidermy too?