Extraordinary bodies: The artist Kobelkoff

Who and what could be seen in these shows? Circus and fairground performers often made a distinction between people with congenital disorders and those with acquired exceptionalities. The latter category included sword swallowers, hypermobile 'snake people', or people with a fully tattooed body. These artists created their unique appearance themselves through exercise, body modification, or special talents. Others, like Kobelkoff, were born with a body outside of the norm and used their physical situation to make a living. Such a division seems to imply that for people with congenital conditions, their identity was an inevitable consequence of their bodies. However, the figure of the 'freak', even then a contested term, is a cultural construct, created by the way society views the body.

These shows tell us how nineteenth-century society gave meaning to physical differences. Today, we use terms like 'disability' or 'disorder', while someone from the fifteenth century would perhaps have regarded physical deviation as a divine harbinger of either prosperity or misfortune. The nineteenth century cast off those superstitious interpretations and looked to science for answers. The bodies put on stage challenged the limits of the socially imaginable. For instance, conjoined twins raised questions on individuality, while the bearded woman created doubts about the strict division between men and women. Historians therefore interpret these exhibitions as a mechanism by which spectators could construct their own identities as modern citizens. By putting these 'extraordinary' people on stage and singling out what was different about them, the audience defined itself as the norm.

These contrasts were cleverly exploited by fairground artists in their promotion. The 'giant' was depicted next to someone of average or small stature. The bearded woman posed like a distinguished lady in a bourgeois home. In turn, Kobelkoff demonstrated in his shows how he was extremely ordinary and could effortlessly perform daily tasks without arms and legs. With people of colour, their origins were emphasized with exaggerated and made-up stories about their 'primitive' and 'exotic' temperament. American showman P.T. Barnum drove these promotional strategies to the limits of decency. He orchestrated numerous media stunts, such as the marriage of General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton) to Lavinia Warren, both of whom had a form of dwarfism.

The unbridled enthusiasm of nineteenth-century sciences to push the boundaries of what was known, was a big source of inspiration for these shows. Performers were given names like 'woman-lobster', 'pig-man', or 'panther-woman', as if they were hybrid or newly-discovered species. The Lao woman Krao, who had a form of hypertrichosis, was promoted by her impresario as the missing link between man and ape. Posters invited the public to witness all these phenomena with their own eyes. To bolster their credibility, the shows relied on medical certificates in which doctors verified the ‘natural condition’ of these ‘living wonders’.

Conversely, medicine also took advantage of these shows. Whenever Kobelkoff visited a city, he was often invited by medical faculties or local doctors. His presence offered doctors a chance to showcase their knowledge and expertise to their students and the general public. By defining the physical body in distant, medical terminology, they reinforced the spectacular view of the extraordinary body. Their individual stories disappeared underneath this medical objectification. After their deaths, many artists' bodies ended up in the cabinets of medical museums. Doctors preyed on their bodies, giving the artists' fame a morbid extension into the afterlife.

The lives of the performers are often depicted very black-and-white: either as a tragic story of exploitation, or as one in which the fairground and circus world provided a refuge from a world that cast them out. The historical record paints a more complex picture and the 'real' truth is often difficult to ascertain. For some, the fairground offered a way to survive; for others, it was the start of a career in show business. Some saw their humanity fade away, while others saw an opportunity to become their own person. Some performers, like Kobelkoff, managed to maintain their independence. They had some control over the visibility of their otherness, at a time when medicine and institutional care increasingly wanted to cover up and hide those differences. But most of the people displayed just tried to live their lives as best as possible amid the constraints and possibilities of the times.

The people in these shows had in common that they deviated from the norm in one way or another. Yet at the same time, they were a very diverse group. For some, their experiences were largely limited to the confrontation with looks and stares; others experienced a physical limitation that could not be hidden and excluded them from the regular job market. For example, the bearded woman could shave to conceal her hair growth; someone with a congenital physical condition who was put on stage at a young age had much less autonomy.

Other aspects, such as class, gender, and ethnicity, also had an impact on performers' social position and how they could shape their lives. For example, Maximo and Bartola, a brother and sister from El Salvador born with microcephaly, a disorder often associated with intellectual disability, were displayed and exploited as the 'last Aztecs' by impresarios and reduced to exotic curiosities. For some women performers, their impresario was also their husband, which placed them in a subordinate position twice over. In contrast, Kobelkoff grew up in relative prosperity and was able to maintain his independence as a man. He considered himself not just a 'torso man' but a 'torso artist'. On his death in 1933, he left his six children a rich legacy.

In the twentieth century, exhibitions of 'living phenomena' slowly disappeared. The shows increasingly acquired the reputation of a vulgar and inappropriate spectacle. Society from then on judged that physical 'abnormalities' were a medical problem, to be diagnosed and treated by a doctor, and not a source of entertainment. Increased attention to the rights of people with disabilities also contributed to a change in attitude.

Still, we may wonder whether the 'freak show' is truly a thing of the past. In the nineteenth century people could turn to the fair, today modern media such as television, the internet, and social media provide an anonymous platform for our curiosity and fascination with the unusual, deviant, and unknown. The stories of people like Kobelkoff remind us that behind all bodies, however unusual, are human beings with dreams, ambitions, and a story of their own.