Little Shop of Horrors
Sometimes you can stumble across something that simultaneously attracts and repels- leaving you powerless to look away- as sinister, macabre force holds you in place, analysing and examining every minute detail. That’s the sensation I had when I first discovered some enormous glass cases full of antique taxidermy in the Lower School art cupboard- where they had supposedly been hidden out of reach- and the stuffed animals, captured mid-action still retain the same power over me today.
Viktor Wynd’s Little Shop of Horror’s looks set to elicit a similar response. Stocking a curious range of oddities and artefacts, Mr Wynd’s eccentric emporium could possibly be the answer to any Halloween needs you may have, where nothing is quite as it should be. Mutated teddy bears with two heads are sold alongside human foetuses, chocolate anuses, carnivorous plants, and the obligatory taxidermy owls and otters. Decadently opulent yet gruesome, this is the stuff that the best nightmares are made from.
The shop also plays host to the kind of unconventional events that you would expect to find in such surroundings- lectures on hypochondria, syphilis and whales, and in December the inimitable Stephen Bayley (‘the second most intelligent man in Britain’) will explain just why he hates Christmas.
Little shop of Horrors is the latest enterprise from The Last Tuesday Society, a Pataphysical (a philosophy dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics, often a parody of the theory of modern science, expressed in nonsensical language- thanks Wiki…) organisation that was founded in 1878 by one William James, whilst he was studying at Harvard University. Today the society is governed by the Chancellor Viktor Wynd and Suzette Field, with the aim of exploring the literary, esoteric and artistic sensibilities of London.
Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors
11 Mare Street
London, E8 4RP
