About the Museum |
|
 Obscura Society visit 2013/photo: Annetta Black |
The Zymoglyphic Museum is the world's only repository for the study and display of art, artifacts, and natural history of the Zymoglyphic region. It is located in San Mateo, California.
The museum is not generally open to the public except during special events. There are no scheduled events currently - see the list of past events here .To be informed about the museum's activities and upcoming events send an email to the museum and request to be put on the mailing list (comes with a lifetime no-spam warranty).
Views of the Museum
What is it? A self-museum, a cabinet of curiosities, no, make that fishtanks of curiosities, with lots of little eyes secretly staring at you, and organic matter arranged into beings with souls.
Laura Mappin
Take a virtual tour of the museum with Laura as your guide
The world's finest collection of artistic detritus
Today I discovered I'm a zymoglyphile...I'm chuffed pink to have found the proper name for my condition
It's this middle-aged weird dad guy in the suburbs...but it's still very cool
See responses by visitors, both virtual and physical, to the museum and its collections - poems, photographs, sketches, blog entries, and art inspired by the museum's collections
It is made of some deep thoughts, some random junk and some accumulated stuff...It is a place to meditate on life and death
Judith Hoffman
Visit the gallery of photographs of the museum by Judith Hoffman, artist-in-residence
The poetry of form, lyricism of association, and economy of function that define every concatenation, that pervade every diorama, rivet us to these apparitions, cementing our fascination and our affection.
Peter Frank, The Art World Beneath our Feet: The Zymoglyphic Museum and its Mission
Delve into the museum's foundations in Peter's essay
More about the Museum
- How the museum came to be
- The evolution of the museum from a 10 year-old boy's collection of rocks, bird nests, fossils, arrowheads, and marine animals
- Frequently asked questions
- What does 'zymoglyphic' mean? and other mysteries explained
- Affiliated institutions
- Sympathetic museums (physical and virtual), libraries, esoteric societies, etc.
Curator's Musings
- The Zymoglyphic Way
- Philosophical foundations; or, the Grand View
- Artist's statement
- "...nascent dialectic between naive eccentricity and self-referential parody in the creation of an institutional persona..."
- Curator's resume
- "Objective: Integrate diverse elements from a wide variety of media into a conceptually unified syncretic framework..."
- Literary Guestbook
- An imaginary guest book, hosting writers from Shakespeare to Pynchon
- Tour the museum with Joyce and Re-joyce!
- "Well, come to The Zyglomorphic Amusing Rheum! Lots of fun with Finnegans Wake!"
- This site and all photographs copyright 2000-2013 by Jim Stewart, except where otherwise noted
- Links to books and DVDs in the museum shop are provided in association with Amazon
- Some portions may or may not be works of fiction and should not be used for factual reference without independent research
- Any exposure or depiction of human genitalia, pudenda, or secondary sexual characteristics is for educational, artistic, or entertainment purposes only, with no prurient intent, expressed or implied. While such depictions do exist on this web site, viewers are further cautioned that they are rare and may be difficult to find.
- No animals were harmed or killed in the making of the exhibits except for some ants and some pesky little beetles that were caught trying to dismantle portions of the exhibits they deemed edible.
- The term "Zymoglyphic" is a trademark of The Zymoglyphic Museum, its subsidiaries, heirs, and assigns, and may only be used when referring to the Museum or to the Region it claims to represent. "zymoglyphic" (all lower case) may be used as an adjective to describe any person, place, thing, or idea related to the themes of the Museum, although Museum management claims final moral if not legal authority to determine what is and is not truly "zymoglyphic."