Body art

Infestation at downtown gallery reimagines life and death

From a distance, different shades of green and brown sweep the walls at 108 Contemporary. Closer, a graveyard for thousands of insects unfolds, cicadas, beetles and myriad crawlers and flyers pinned kaleidoscopic to hundreds of square feet of white wall.

The exhibit, titled “Unseen Beauty,” explores the apprehension some feel toward insects. The artist — Jennifer Angus, a design-studies professor at University of Wisconsin — tries to display them in such a way that, she hopes, makes them seem beautiful. The forms reference both textiles and wallpaper, she said. They look life-like, ready to jump, crawl, or fly away. Angus’ goal is “to create a world, a room of wonder and magic.” Angus said she moistens the specimens to brighten them.

The insects were put into a jar. It’s called a killing jar, Angus told me. Inside, they’re poisoned — gassed, really. Some who have visited Angus’ exhibits are offended by the mass of insects sacrificed for her installation, she said. “Insects are a renewable resource. What isn’t renewable is their habitat … Insects have an important role to play in our society,” she said. It sounds gruesome, she added, but insects don’t feel pain like humans do. She compared what she does to euthanizing a cat.

When considering insects for such an exhibit, Angus decides based on four factors: size needed to fill the space, durability, inventory, and her desire to choose insects not typically considered attractive. Angus doesn’t waste any part of an insect. When an insect’s body crumbles, the artist uses the parts to create hybrid creatures. She displays them in a circular shadow box.

Angus’ pinned friends are actually tiny world travelers. Many originate in southern Asia. Some are farmed. Many are caught and sold for entomological purposes. Angus reuses the bodies; some are older than the students who were visiting the gallery the day I visited the exhibit. Due to their fragility, Angus personally delivers them to galleries across the U.S. They are shipped securely oversees.

At the foundation of Angus’ exhibit is a Victorian theme. Bordering the floor of the exhibit space is a storyboard of Victorian-era illustrations from the book “Episodes of Insect Life.” The pictures are reminiscent of the children’s story “Frog and Toad,” but instead of amphibians on adventures it’s insects — they’re flying in a hot air balloon or paddling in a leaf canoe. Angus enlarged the black-and-white illustrations for the exhibit and added color using Photoshop.

Two-dozen sixth graders from McKinley Middle School swarmed the gallery, buzzing from one group of insects to the next. Temptation to touch seemed nearly irresistible. A pre-teen brunette in a pink bow nearly nudged the creatures’ skeletal shells with her nose. One boy breathed on the back of a four-inch Malaysian Heteropteryx dilatata — commonly called a Thorny Stick — and asked what “the pokey things” are for.

“How did the bugs die?” another child asked. The curator didn’t know, but the kids pestered. One boy, with messy hair and a red hoodie, said the insects are probably poisoned, suffocated within a container. “That’s what I do,” he said.