May 04, 2004

Monkey On Your Back. From the UCR California Museum of Photography. "This exhibition is a survey of people relating to their primitive cousins through humorous, ironic relationships and poignant indignities."
  • It's strange how they mixed images of apes and monkeys with other primates. Maybe because I see much more peopleness the them, apes especially, whereas lemurs don't look any more human than a cat.
  • Thanks, jb. I was beginning to wonder if I'd been sent to monkey Coventry. I thought this post would be ideal for MoFi, and I'm surprised it hasn't attracted more comments. The Ansel Adams photographs of the laboratory monkey are very disturbing, particularly this one of the monkey apparently being given an electric shock.
  • Note that all the animals pictured were pre-pubescent. Once monkeys hit puberty, they become less controllable, more arrogant, and not fit for pets. Then they usually wind up somewhere in a cage, tied to a stake, or subbing for human test subjects. We should be using rich people to test medicines, not monkeys or other animals. Perhaps the Hilton sisters would serve?
  • SlightlyFoxed: Nice link. I saved it for when I had time to really look through it, and I'm glad I did. There's something sad about a lot of the pictures and the one you mentioned is totally gruesome. I'm not sure if it's really electro-shock, but the grimace of the monkey with the fangs showing, the horrible little smirk on the face of the man, and the fact that the monkey is wearing a shirt makes it just too bizarre. Monkeys that don't look at this one are missing out.
  • Fascinating pictures, SlightlyFoxed, and indeed an excellent FPP for monkeyfilter.