Who is Arthur Byrd?

Posted by Marcy

The University of Louisville's Hite Galleries is currently exhibiting The Arthur Byrd Cabinet of Curiosity. This exhibition is a small but fantastical journey into the past, reminding audiences of the origins of the modern day museum. A small selection from Transylvania University's archives, once you've gone through the exhibit you may wonder what other oddities, or horrors, did not make it into the exhibit. Unlike the cabinets of old, this one has been interpreted for you, not merely by labeling the objects within, but with elaborate stories detailing their histories as well as of the people associated with them. And it is within these interpretations that the art of the show lays.

The panels used to tell the stories of the objects are made to look as though they came with the collection which was established in 1860. It is obvious that they are not, it’s more of an aesthetic choice to enhance in the mood, so to speak. The verbose and meandering language is reminiscent of this same time when getting to the point was done with a flourishing swirl of crossing a calligraphied T. If you can muddle through to the fabulous stories beneath, it may leave you with a sense that someone is pulling on your leg. Some objects, events, and names may seem vaguely familiar or are completely obscure. But if you’ve heard of James Audobon or Samuel Rafinesque, you begin to think, ‘No wait, this must be true because this can be verified.’ It is in the way these stories are told, the way the objects are interpreted that cause a bit of doubt to the exhibition’s authenticity. Whoever would have thought that the respected Mr Audubon would have created an entirely fictitious species as an elaborate hoax on a colleague cries out for instant verification from the internet.

Devil-Jack Diamond fish

That the stories to these object are told in an over-the-top manner do not detract the viewer from spending many minutes peering into apothecary jars, lit from beneath as though straight from a mad scientists’ lab, guessing at what may be contained within.

Many pieces in the show are just bizarre and wondrous enough to hold your attention or to allow you to bypass the copious readings.


A video piece included in the exhibition is not an actual object but rather describes an experiment of using snails to create a pasilalinic telegraph that took place on Transylvania’s campus. The video is a close-up shot of snails slowly touching with a rolling story line over top of the images that describe what the experiment was to achieve. The footage is ethereal and mesmerizing which may account for the inability to keep one's eyes on the words floating by.

Perhaps the most far fetched entry in to this exhibition is the bottled meatrain which fell from the sky but only over just one farm in 1876. The fact that there was still 'meat' to bottle up after all the farm animals had their fill of a meal falling from the sky may be a testament to the quantity that rained down.

A bottled sample of the meatrain that fell from the sky over a farm in Olympia, KY, March 3, 1876

There are a few examples of pure irony such as the wall of mustache cups. These were gifted to a physician in accolades for his groundbreaking experiments using the hair of prisoners. The irony falls to the fact that the doctor, who had a fashionable large mustache, developed alopecia and would have found the cups taunting had he known of them at all. His son intercepted the gifts and held onto them, hiding the collection from his father.

A mustache cup that keeps your cookie duster dry.

All the objects that are labeled in this show demand further research, even for the semi-curious onlooker. I've looked them all up. The only thing I cannot find any information on, or have remotely come across is Arthur Byrd himself. Why are all these pieces in his cabinet when it appears as though items have come into this collection from 1860 all the way up to 1983? Who is this Arthur Byrd? He has quite the collection. Wink, wink.