134DIORAMASin which we see ourselves reflected. As in Mark Dion’s Landfill, decorum
is here the key element upholding the illusion tied to the rhetorical struc-
ture that supports it. Decorum defines the appropriate modalities of in-
clusion and exclusion of the human with the constructed separateness of
the natural. It is in this sense that Kulik’s abrasive realism subverts the
discourses of social conduct and self-censorship: the dichotomy of hu-
manity and animality plays a key role here. The images problematize the
iconography of classical art, with its tendency to regularly exhibit human
flesh for the purpose of arousing the viewer but simultaneously drawing
a line at the graphic representation of the sexual act.
It is no coincidence that in natural history dioramas, animals are never
shown having sex, urinating, or defecating. These activities, all of which
could be described as “naturally” occurring in all beings, have been
purged from the representational archive of natural history because they
do not comply with decorum. It is in this sense that I favor a reading of
Kulik’s dioramas as inscribing a wholly anthropogenic crisis—the strug-
gle to embrace the challenge of overcoming the separation between hu-
man and nonhuman that was culturally orchestrated by the expulsion
FIGURE 3.9 Oleg Kulik, Giraffe, from the Museum of Nature or New Paradise series,
2000–2001. © Oleg Kulik.