The latest offerings from local cultural institutions with The Totam’s picks for the week:

TONIGHT: Bob Colacello, legendary Interview editor and Andy Warhol’s go-to guy of the 1970’s speaks at the San Francisco DeYoung Museum’s Koret Auditorium as part of their Warhol Live exhibition programming. 6:30 PM - 7:15 PM

Also, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Observant Eye series offers participants the opportunity to study particular works of art selected from the Museum’s collection over informal discussions with distinguished educators and curators in the galleries of the Museum. 6:30 – 8:00 PM

Sunday, February 22nd: PS1’s spring cycle of exhibitions opens with shows by artists Kenneth Anger, Jonathan Horowitz, and Lutz Bacher. DJ Big Vern Burns on the 3rd Floor. 12-6pm

Why not continue your tour of Queens from PS1 in Long Island City to The Queens Museum in Corona Park, and start some spring cleaning to boot? Artist Derick Melander will be collecting secondhand clothing in the Museum’s parking lot every weekend until April 26th for his participatory project “Into the Fold” (2009), creating a site-specific work from folded and stacked second-hand clothing with the help of museum guests.

The Whitney Museum of American Art is offering a $5 recession special admission price through March 8, for those who join their email list- see here. A perfect opportunity to see the newly-opened Sites exhibit and catch up on Alex Bag’s video installation on the ground floor.

Better yet, see some free art presented by the MoMA during your commute: the museum takes over Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station, filling it with reproductions of over 50 works of art from the MoMA’s collection as a gift to the city’s subway riders. Make your experience interactive via their mini-site by downloading a free audio tour and posting photos of your visit to share.

Tags: admission, artworks, Atlantic Avenue, audio tour, Big Vern Burns, Bob Colacello, Brooklyn, collection, commute, Derick Melander, DeYoung, interactive, Koret, Metropolitan, MoMA, Museum, Observant Eye, Pacific Street, PS1, Queens, Queens Museum, secondhand clothing, Sites, spring, subway station, Warhol Live, Whitney.

Portrait of Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter (circa 1846). Courtesy Mütter Museum via NY Times

The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia was originally founded in 1856 as an adjunct collection of teaching materials for the city’s College of Physicians, following a bequest of the personal collection of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter to the school. Mütter was one of the first physicians in United States to collect wet specimens, tools and anatomical models for the purpose of medical demonstration in an age where surgical examples were often difficult to procure.

Within decades, as advances in the medical sciences began to outpace the Museum’s ability to add relevant teaching material to its stores, the Mütter began to collect what would become the repository of oddities and artifacts that it has become known for today.

c. George Widman/Mütter Museum, Courtesy Mütter Museum via NY Times

The Museum’s collection consists of an astounding number items reflecting changes in the technology of medicine, as well as memorabilia belonging to present and past practitioners. Housed in 19th century glass cases, the scientific materials of yesteryear have become an enjoyably macabre journey into the history of bodily examination. On a recent visit, highlights of the permanent collection included:

An overview of the history of conjoined twins and their biographies, related to the Museum’s possession of the livers and a plaster cast of Chang and Eng, the original and most famous Siamese twins of the 19th century.

The free cell-phone audio tour of the Mütter’s most popular items, which revealed in-depth information about the Soap Lady, a mysterious corpse exhumed from Philadelphia’s Washington Square Park whose body is covered in a layer of waxy soaplike material that essentially mummified her remains.

The "soap lady" is prepared for an X-ray at the Mütter Museum. Researchers (from left) Frank Cerrone, Michael Schlenk and Gerald J. Conlogue. (Photo: John Costello/Philadelphia Inquirer)

Bookbindings of tanned human skin (a predecessor of Vim Delvoye or Catts & Zurr’s skin pieces?)

Account of William Corder's trial bound in his skin. Not part of the Mütter collection. (Dan Alban/Harvard Law Record)

Two flat-files containing a meticulously catalogued collection of 2,000 objects extracted from people’s throats.

Tucked away into the back of the side rooms, the rotating exhibits included the opulent Extraordinary Bodies: Photographs from the Mütter Museum, a selection of images from the Mütter’s archives paired with a selection of images by contemporary photographers who have incorporated pieces from the Museum’s collection into their works.

Joel-Peter Witkin, Harvest, 1984, silver gelatin print.

Mütter Museum:  19 South Twenty-Second Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Tags: 19th century, anatomy, Chang and Eng, collection, College of Physicians, contemporary, human skin, Joel Peter Witkin, medical, Museum, Mutter Museum, oddities, Philadelphia, photographers, photographs, science, Siamese twins, Soap Lady, specimens, surgical, Thomas Mutter, throats.