Speculative Taxidermy

200THE ALLURE OF THE VENEER

speculative taxidermy sets a critical stage upon which the viewer can begin
a process of renegotiation. And it might be plausible that, ultimately, both
philosophical movements have something to say with regard to animal
thingness. After all, both object-oriented ontology and new materialism
find in surfaces a point of access or a decisive contact interface where rela-
tions begin, form, and become. Bennett’s encounter with debris at the
beginning of Vibrant Matter is articulated in the relations between the
different surfaces of disparate and randomly gathered objects. She claims
to have, for a moment, achieved Thoreau’s life goal, that of being surprised
by what we see. The American philosopher trained his gaze for this very
purpose and said, “The perception of surfaces will always have the effect
of a miracle to a sane sense.”^21

WÖLFFLIN AND THE PHOTOGRAPHY

OF SCULPTURES

In the Quadruple Object, Harman argues that we do not better grasp an
object by viewing it from every side. He claims this to be “physically, men-
tally, and perhaps logically impossible.”^22
At the end of the nineteenth century, just at the time when neoclassi-
cal art still represented the most powerful and persuasive educational tool
of institutional power and when lifelike taxidermy entered its golden age,
art historian Heinrich Wölfflin posed the pivotal question: “How should
one photograph sculpture?”^23 Wölfflin essentially argued that photography
was corrupting the perfect beauty of classical sculpture. The art historian
claimed that an arbitrary positioning of the photographer’s camera could
prevent the materialization of full clarity.^24 As Wölfflin stated: “[A work
made in] the good [old] tradition provides one main view, and the educated
eye feels it is a virtue that here the figure explains itself all at once and
becomes completely understandable, so that one is not driven around it
in order to grasp its content, but rather that it informs the beholder about
its viewpoint right from the start.”^25
Wölfflin identified the most appropriate positioning of the viewer as the
frontal view.^26 The photographic image of the three-dimensional object
should subscribe to this affirmative prescription imposed by the perspec-