Curiosity

Abstract

‘Curiosity’ explores the varied world of exhibitions in the West End. The district became home to a variety of popular exhibitions that stood side-by-side with sites of ‘official’ art and culture such as the new National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The West End visitor could enjoy spectacular panoramas, which dazzled the eye, or poses plastiques where models made classical paintings come to life. There were also freak shows and events where non-white peoples were placed on exhibition. These included the Hottentot Venus and the Aztec Lilliputians. Exhibition-mania was particularly centred on Leicester Square but could also be found on Piccadilly, site of the Egyptian Hall, that offered curiosities, art works, popular lectures, dioramas, and automata. Pleasure districts abounded with what were seen as distorted bodies. This gave them the quality of what Michel Foucault terms ‘heterotopias’ which draw upon, but disturb, the culture at large.