Not every day you are going to the inauguration of an exhibition in which they present you to (and it gives you two kisses), in which you can make a sensational selfie in the jaws of a as if you were, saving the distances, Jason statham, or put yourself under a pterodactyl so that it seems that you will take you in their claws as that as lucky A million years ago. But come on, it is what can be expected of an exhibition dedicated to visible invisible creatures whose commissioners are two characters such as the writer and chamber fossils, cryptozoology, Darwin and Indiana Jones.
Invisible animals: myth, life, extinction and degence It is the title of the sample dedicated to mythical, rare, missing or in danger of being, which has been presented this noon at the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona (NAT) and which is the same title, adding the concept so in vogue of de -sextinction, of the book they published in 2021 both (edited jointly by Nordic and Captain Swing, with also a version in Catalan).
In fact, that of invisible animals is a very long -distance project that they have been delivered for more than a decade Martinez and Serrallonga in parallel to their respective personal careers and that now, after various plasma (books, talks, web), it reaches a culminating point with the exhibition in the NAT. The two authors and friends had the idea of asking a group of people from different fields, collaborators of 63 different disciplines, especially scientists and artists, who chose some of those creatures, those who fascinate them or with those who work, and present them to the public in their own way, adding them, the commissioners, their own obsessions. After four years of preparation, the exhibition collects the result, such as an ark stimulant of Noah (including beings that would have been left out), with the material grouped into four areas: myth, life, extinction and welcoming.
The sample, “multidisciplinary, avant -garde and inhabitual”, necessarily incomplete given the immensity of the catalog of invisible animals, has as formidable sections as those dedicated respectively by Joan Fontcuberta and Antoni mutadas to the sirens and the tiger of Tasmania. From the first, material of his work is exhibited on the alleged discovery of fossil sirens (“Hydropihtecus”), including a false documentary about the findings of the priest Jean Fontana (sic), the Teilhard de Chardin de las Ondinas; Two photos of underwater excavations of the remains and a complete skeleton of a specimen with a human body and fish tail. A visitor has told Serrallonga, for fun narcotics of this, which has surprised him to discover that the mermaids were real. In the same field of siren, photos of a beautiful specimen swimming in waters of Mallorca and Formentera (!) Are exhibited. The siren herself (actress and psychologist Natalia Álvarez, photographed by Adriano Gotti for the series Dreams of a human siren: parthenope, today) has been in the presentation and explained live to this newspaper that his favorite book is The old mermaid by José Luis Sampedro. As for the work of Muntadas, it is shown in an independent installation in a dark and reflex cubicle, with various objects, publications, photos and the sequencing of the Marsupial predator DNA, their interest in the extinct tiger of Tasmania or Tilacino (Thylacinus cynocephalus) whose last copy was seen in 1936.
On the tour, with an evocative soundtrack created for the occasion by Rafel Plana, one can be found from the very few triton of the Montseny – with project information to keep it – to the already banished dodo or the recently extinct (1943) Californian butterfly xerces blue, passing through the elusive giant squid, or the aforementioned pterodactyl (the replica of Pteranodon It was made for the film The Convenator Valley, 2022) and Megalodon (a terrifying model of the jaws of that prehistoric shark of 18 meters). There are also the TS’Ikayo, to be half a half -elephant of the Hadzabe of Tanzania, the legendary chupacabras, the immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) and two urogals whose courtship song can be heard and that respond to the names of Gabi y Saw.
In the exhibition, with a passionate point the whole rolled And that does not doubt at times to mix churras with merina – the black sheep Extremadura (1920-1958), Discovery of the double propeller structure of the DNA chain. Also, in the female presence chapter, in addition to the sirens and the many scientists and artists, a Neanderthal (extinct) and two combatants of the conservation of species that provide their testimony in an audiovisual: the naturalist veteran, daughter of the initiatory Félix, and the young activist Carlota Bruna. It also participates a tattoo artist, Paola Garmo, specialized in drawing fabulous animal in the skin.
The visit to the exhibition, production of NAT, starts under the giant squid and before a video that shows the actor, collaborator of the project, friend of Serrallonga and Martínez and a person interested in nature conservation issues, reading his prologue to the book Invisible animals. You also pass before a whole body mirror that seems to suggest (and more if you are a vampire) that you are also an invisible animal. “We are where we dreamed of being,” said Jordi Serrallonga, while Gabi Martínez has underlined what he has as a challenge and beautiful “giving visibility to the invisible.”
For his part, the director of the NAT and scientific advisor of the exhibition, (Grand Fan of Lovecraft and his olesy creatures, by the way), recalled in the presentation that 42,000 species will disappear in the coming years if he is not remedied and has considered the invisible animals very poetically “cut branches of the tree of life.” Preserving diversity, he said, should be a priority, and has pointed out how the exhibition is in the strategic line of the museum to deepen “in current issues that question us and attract our attention”. He has considered that although creatures of the imaginary appear, the main approach of the sample is scientific.
Lalueza has explained to this newspaper that they have recently incorporated into the NAT, unexpectedly, other invisible animals: several claws of (a forceful dinosaur to which the museum precisely dedicated an exhibition years ago) that were seized when they were tried to introduce them illegally in the country along with meteorite remains. The world, that fascinating place.
