Dead or Alive at the Museum of Arts and Design

Dead or Alive, at the Museum of Arts and Design, is not an exhibition for the squeamish. Preserved bugs, mummified bats, mountains of mice parts, and more skeletons than you can shake a femur at fill two floors of gallery space. All of the pieces incorporate organic materials, and collectively they invoke the gentlemanly cabinets of curiosity that eventually led to natural history museums. Our favorite works were those that transformed the detritus of life into something beautiful, like Lonneke Gordjin and Ralph Nuata's collection of dandelion puffs lit by LED lights, or Jorge Mayet's Obatala, a lovely tree-and-root system incorporating feathers, paper mache, and electric cable into a vision of the delicate magic of nature.

Photos: Shen Shaomin's Sagittarius, courtesy of Eli Klein, and Jorge Mayet's Obatala, courtesy of Galeria Horrach Moya