National Post (National Edition)
WHALE PORN
`Whale bone porn’ perturbs museum-goer
Carvings spark controversy.
Never mind the Internet. A Vancouver mother and schoolteacher is sounding the alarm after stumbling upon another medium that she thinks may corrupt young and impressionable minds: 19th-century “whale bone porn.”
Ann Pimentel raised the concern — and coined the unlikely phrase — after visiting the Vancouver Maritime Museum (VMM), a modest institution on the city’s west side. That’s where a small collection of etchings and engravings on whale teeth and bone is on display, part of a larger show that also features example of maritime tattoo art.
Nine of the etched pieces on display show images of a sexual nature, some of them quite explicit. A Whaler’s Hope of the First Night Ashore is etched across a tooth that’s eight inches long, extracted two centuries ago from an unfortunate sperm whale. Underneath the title is etched a saucy scene. A man and a woman, flesh exposed. Mouths open, limbs entwined. You get the idea.
Lust was a common theme in 19thcentury scrimshaw, which is what this art form — etchings on hard surfaces culled from sea creatures — is called. Scrimshaw was typically made by lonely whalers, trapped for months aboard ships that scoured the South Pacific for their prey, usually sperm whales, magnificent, 50-foot long creatures prized for their oil.
The whalers had idle hands and feverish minds. Scrimshawing was their means of expression, their release valve. Using ship-made hand tools and tobacco juice for ink, they set upon whale leftovers. Some of their work is finely detailed. Some is undeniably erotic.
The VMM has collected scrimshaw for years, but the pieces were rarely displayed. Museum curator Patricia Owen said the opportunity arose when staff decided to present a show about maritime tattoos; it seemed natural to compare and contrast the two art forms. Tattoo and Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor opened last week and runs to mid-October.
To date, Ms. Pimentel is the only person to complain. She has mounted a minor jihad, writing missives on tourist-oriented websites and approaching local media outlets. “I am disturbed and troubled after a morning at the Vancouver Maritime Museum,” she wrote on Tripadvisor.com.
“The Museum have [sic] a new exhibit called Scrimshaw which features numerous images of inappropriate nature (oral sex, sex, nudity, male anatomy etc.) on tusks. … As a mother and a teacher I was extremely disturbed and believe these pieces of ‘art’ should be removed.”
Ms. Pimentel told the Vancouver Sun that her two small children — aged two and three — were needlessly exposed to the disturbing “whale bone porn.” No advance warnings were made to sensitive patrons outside the display room, she complained.
But the nine pieces with sexual content are displayed in a case raised high off the floor, well beyond scope of a toddler’s inquisitive eyes, and lighting is prudishly dim. Next to the display is a sign: “Hide Your Eyes! These pieces of scrimshaw are not intended for children.”
Ms. Owen says the VMM anticipated that some concerns might be raised, hence the care taken with presentation. The museum has “more graphic” examples of scrimshaw, she says, but these remain hidden in the museum’s basement. They include depictions of creative candlestick use and what Ms. Owen cautiously describes as “the act.” They will likely never see the light of day.
That may not satisfy Ms. Pimentel. The sexy scrimshaw that’s now on view “needs to be in an isolated room, it needs to be clearly marked, where a child or anyone under 18 can’t see them,” she told the Vancouver Sun.
Ironically, Ms. Pimentel’s onewoman crusade has created more interest in the VMM show than the museum could have mustered on its own. There’s a further irony, a real controversy that involves the collection. A small underground trade exists in whale bone porn, some of it very disturbing indeed. Ms. Owen says her museum can’t guarantee that all of its scrimshaw is from genuine 19th-century whale; some pieces may have been crafted more recently, by unscrupulous artisans and fakers, and then made to appear “aged.”