Not only did I see the lamps on Thursday but this small exhibit of items that don’t easily fall into categories.  From the museum website:

Oddities and Delights is an exploration of the fun, whimsical, and strange artworks in the Muskegon Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Fantastical vehicles made from discarded parts, a chest freezer transformed into a cow, fabric skinned cats with visible wooden skeletons, a two-headed deer in bronze, and a cheeseburger meal with fries and a drink rendered in glass highlight some of our favorite delightfully unusual artworks. From the historically curious to the visually offbeat, these objects offer a very different perspective on our visual culture.

One of the ladies in my dream group told me they had a mold of Abraham Lincoln’s head, so there was no way I was going to miss it.  Lincoln was 6 ft. 4 in. and I was surprised that the cast showed he had an average-sized head.  His hand was much larger than average.  I also noticed he had few stress lines in the area between his eyes and above the nose, which would seem to contradict the amount of responsibility on his shoulders.  The grooves seem to have migrated south.

The next artifact threw off a bad juju vibe to me.  Imagination ran wild and the thought of this critter springing to life at the midnight hour and running around in the museum seemed plausible.

Here he is with his little buddies.

This next piece has been on display in the foyer by the back door.  “The Fall of the House of Udder,” by Mark Packer, is the name of it.  The body of the cow is a freezer.  The door is open, and inside are a collection of moving and screaming steaks.  The screams are motion activated and start when you get closer.  In the video (at the above link) they scream when you open the body.

This next one is my favorite of the ones I took pics of (after Abe Lincoln’s.)  “Hansel and Gretel Lost,” by local artist, Natividad “Nat” Rosales.

The next one is titled, “1001 Monkeys”

The last one is a piece of wood carved into a man/marionette.

I didn’t take a picture of this next one but it is my favorite of the works they had out and I was able to find a pic of it on the internet.  Interestingly it says the work is at a different museum.  Not sure which one is the original and which one is a print, here it is.  “We Fix Flats,” by Robert Lawson.

It would be nice if the museum kept this one small gallery open and kept rotating “oddities” from the permanent collection.  It would definitely keep me coming back.