Coral: Science, Mythology, Metamorphoses

 A Little Girl with a Basket of Cherries
© National Gallery

I’m not sure if two makes a series yet but despite holidays and work I’ve managed another Renaissance Utterances podcast. The technology still posed challenges but it has definitely been a quicker process than the first one was. The theme for this month, as promised, is coral, which has been wonderful to research. Luckily I knew exactly which pieces of art I was going to talk about, and I had already been to the featured exhibition. All I had to do on holiday was write the script.

Which is why on Saturday, three weeks after returning from my Adriatic travels, I found myself in the peace of the Warburg library up to my eyes in books. I was surrounded by volumes exploring the evil eye, gem lore, history of science and natural philosophy, and Italian coral fishing. 

Materiality of Art: Or is computer art, art?

It's rare that any lecture fails to spark a meteor shower of ideas but just occasionally I'm caught off guard. The LSE arranged an event to explore philosophical issues about art, and ask whether computer artworks are physical objects? Do they really qualify as art? The speaker Margaret Boden is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex. I'd never seriously considered the more intellectual arguments about what constitutes 'art' and it also fitted in well with one of the German sessions of the Dresden conference which had focused on modern examples of mirabilia. I obviously hadn't written up that session so felt this was a good opportunity to synchronise some images and notes.

It's a good job I had some mental images of computer art because Boden provided no slides; 'she isn't into technology'. Was it wrong that alarm bells immediately started ringing? I don't paint with oils but I know how they feel, smell, am aware of their texture and understand their material 'paintiness'. I am no computer programmer but have a reasonable understanding of the architecture which sits behind the screen. My knowledge of marquetry is restricted to memories of my father and his woodwork, as well as reading how to guides, so I know about grain, colour, texture, symbolism. Historians of art require insight into the materiality of the objects they are studying, otherwise how do you understand the challenges that face the artist? It is telling that despite my linguistic incapabilities, I gleaned far more from Verena Kuni's visual presentation than Margaret Boden's words - pretty much the way when dealing with art!

Dresden Conference: The one with Horse Blood and the Hunt

Can't resist this mirror

So this is it. The concluding session of the Dresden Conference on Cabinets of Curiosity. That two day event has provided a wealth of material, as well as making me think about the most extraordinary things. On reflection, the last three sessions were far more controversial than I originally thought; death and colonialism; classifying the unclassifiable; and this final session, which amongst other issues, discussed the blurring of boundaries regarding human and animals. I've combined Marion Endt-Jones and Sarah Wade's talks because they are relevant for my work, and they both used the Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature as a case study.

As Donna Roberts had already noted, 'cabinets of curiosity' have been the topic of many shows to greater and lesser critical success. Marion Endt-Jones suggested we were in a new age of curiosity, citing a raft of shows, from the Manchester coral show, various European exhibitions and the growth in alternative wunder- museums. She suggests that this revival is not just inspired by surreal art but a wholesale 'questioning of institutions'. It is also a reaction to the corporate nature of the white cube, an inevitable and long overdue rethink of ubiquitous bland, open, unnatural, cold galleries.

Dresden Conference: Chimeric Blobs, biological art, or where I go off script

The penultimate talk which I want to cover here marks the descent into something much darker than death and memory; the creation of life. Paradoxically, what should be the most joyous occasion is in an artistic/scientific context, the most troublesome. I can understand that the 16th century natural philosophers attempted to recreate the natural spark of life, and much has been said about this. With ingredients ranging from blood, semen and horse manure, I wasn't sure that the creation and display of modern artificial life would be as distasteful as some of the early modern alchemical recipes.

Helen Gregory's 'Curious instances and chimeric blobs: Disrupting definitions of natural history specimens through contemporary art practice' opened with a discussion about what constitutes a natural history specimen. From the historical wet and dry specimens, which served their purpose adequately, to new technology meaning that objects can be cryogenically frozen. Scientific and laboratory collections have inevitably moved away from their 19th century ancestors and, like some of the samples, evolved beyond all recognition.

Dresden Conference: Wildgoose Memorial Library

From theoretical surrealist curiosity to artistic rational enquiry, Jane Wildgoose's presentation on the work which has arisen from her 'Memorial Library' was rather interesting. I must confess to being rather sceptical at first because I wasn't sure where she was going, but in the end, the light she shed on national museums' archives was both shocking and influential on her work. I don't want to dwell too much on her own collection because, for me personally, this is the part about which I feel most ambivalent. I appreciate that her library of objects is meaningfully and obsessively collected, as well as being catalyst for her research, but I feel unhappy critically examining her collection here. I merely salute her, and suggest you look at her website.

Dresden Conference: Thinking Critically about Curiosity

Donna Roberts's paper set out to encourage us to think critically about curiosity. The world appears to have rediscovered 'cabinets of curiosity' in a big way over the past few years, turning it into the hackneyed phrase that we'd already noted. Although broadly speaking, the modern love of curiosity and rediscovering the love of 'odd collections' is a good thing, the problem with such popularity is the blurring of terminology and lack of critical thinking. To illustrate this point, the article, Museum of Curiosity set to ignite wonder with collection of 'weird' objects, stated that 'un-poetically branding his catalogue of curiosities as “weird shit”, Snelle is purveying objects all sorts of objects from the natural and man-made world'.

 

Dresden Conference: 'I was looking for bog people in Copenhagen' - the work of Rosamond Purcell

All Things Strange And Beautiful

I must confess to bunking off Robert Felfe's probably excellent second session presentation on 'ordnungsraum and labyrinth' because it was in German, and I'm not sure if I even understood the English abstract. My fault, not his. So I went off with a Hochschule student to see her term's work on smoke. It was interesting, and the photos of asphalt stuck on to the bumpy wall was rather effective. Reminded me of ash...

 

Once I'd rejoined the group after refreshments, we entered into the artistic and poetic realm of Rosamond Purcell and the shadow of things. As we saw from the first panel discussion, the conference organisers were keen to ask contemporary artists to speak about their art, not just art historical scholars.

Dresden Conference: Part One Cabinets of Curiosities / Wunderkammern / Kunstkammern

 

View from the theatre

These are the first set of many notes taken at the Dresden Conference on the Cabinet of Curiosities in Contemporary Art (16-17 Jan 2015). As background, the programme states that 'we seek an overview of current debate, artistic, and curatorial strategies. The contemporary version of the cabinet of curiosities is a machine for alternative world views, because inquiring minds and the thirst for knowledge cannot be tamed. What are the curiosities of the 21st century? The mirabilia of the digital age? What are the politics, ideologies and dynamics of today's Kunst- Wunderkammer?'

 

So why here and now? In 2014 the Academy of Fine Arts celebrated its 250th anniversary of its foundation. This conference came about as part of the celebratory events. It accompanies Mark Dion's 'Academy of Things' which is currently on show at the Hochschule. I will come to that separately. Dresden is uniquely placed to host this sort of event because of its own Kunstkammer pedigree, but also its proximity to the Hapsburg collections and the House of Wettin with its pan European connections. Not to mention the desire to cut into contemporary art debate.

An unknown V&A Cabinet - some thoughts

I'm on the cusp of handing in my dissertation and to both my delight and dismay, I'm still finding potentially relevant interesting additions. As I explained to the lovely assistant curator at the V&A last week, it's as if the bench has provided the key to many doors and I'm being invited in to explore. Two items have come to light this week and I wanted to  quickly get some thoughts down on paper. The first is related to my V&A visit, and the second is a Jost Amman woodcut which I have just discovered. I will be focusing on the first below.

On Thursday afternoon we went down to the old post office which serves as the storage for one of the most interesting museum collections in London. As we were issued security passes, the AC was there waiting to escort us upstairs to a massive lumber room with the most interesting rolling shelves contents I've ever seen. As she identified the right shelf, we looked around us, taking in the stag horn mirror, a golden bed stead, 1950s sofas, and various interesting shapes covered in white dust sheets. Like an attic of sleeping beauties, waiting for a visit from someone who knows where to find them.

Leonhard Danner; Designer, Engineer, Inventor

Leonhard Danner of Nuremberg (V&A)

There is something curiously and inevitably contrary about the figure of Leonhard Danner, the sixteenth century Nuremberger engineer/inventor. A tireless figure who we can only imagine through the machines he left behind, the scope of which indicates the breadth of his expertise, imagination, whilst channelling the vision of princely patrons. Biographical details of his life are scant and unreliable; as befits a successful, wealthy, gentleman engineer we know roughly what he looked like but his date of birth is either 1497 or 1507. What we do know is that by 1585, married to his second wife Dorothea, he died a wealthy citizen, enjoying for a brief time an Imperial Privilege derived from timber.