Sunday, September 21, 2014, 2-5 pm
Featuring: Chicken Tails, storytelling for kids, 3-4 pm, with Micki Spiller
The father-son curatorial team Spiller & Spiller premier “Which Came First? The Chicken Museum” their dually collected and curated exhibition. This presentation of everything chicken includes Omelet King Rudolph Stanish’s custom pan and recipe book; photographs of hand-painted roast chicken signs from Roosevelt Avenue; and a collection of wishbones ranging from the tiny breastbone of a quail to pelican and turkey furcula (Latin for wishbones) This is the first known public exhibition curated by a parent-child team.
Six-year-old Hiro Maddock Spiller inspired “Which Came First? The Chicken Museum” at age 3 when he asked, “Can I go to a chicken museum tomorrow?” That night his father, Harley Judd Spiller, amassed chicken-related items from around their home and installed the considerable selection in their museum cabinet. Hiro has curated “I Am 3” and “Lego Vehicles” and exhibited his art at Wayfarer Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
About Spiller & Spiller
Harley Spiller met Colonel Sanders in 1968 and stewed wings for William Grimes in 2009. A longtime NYC museum professional, dubbed “collector extraordinaire” by The New York Times, Harley has blogged about sasami (Japanese raw chicken); published essays on chicken culture for magazines Flavor & Fortune and Gastronomica; and written the chapter “Chow Fun City” for Columbia University Press’Gastropolis: Food & New York City. His flavor-intensified Buffalo wing recipe ran in The New York Sun.
Micki Spiller teaches art at Parsons The New School for Design and Pratt Institute and is currently completing an MLS at Queens College. Her sculptural children’s books are in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn and Newark public libraries. She tells fun stories.
Mortimer Spiller sired the family predilection for poultry and collected many of the artifacts on view. “Which Came First? The ChickenMuseum” is presented in his memory.
The City Reliquary is a not-for-profit community museum and civic organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Through permanent display of New York City artifacts, rotating exhibits of community collections, and annual cultural events, The City Reliquary connects visitors to both the past and present of New York.
