Cabinets of Curiosity

How has the museum changed historically from being a cabinet of curiosities to playground?

The Invisible Data

“The fragments that tell us what we know about the life and death of the painter I call M float on the surface of a treacherous reality … You have to apply a forensic and skeptical mind to the enigmas fo M’s life and death. You have to know how to read the evidence. You have to know the evidence is there - you need a feel for the unsaid, for the missing file, the cancelled entry, the tacit conclusion, the gap, the silence, the business done with a nod and a wink. The missing data in M’s life and death make up a narrative of their own, running invisible but present through the known facts.”
-- Peter Robb’s (1998) biography of Caravaggio

Research in the Museum

Thomas Struth (photo 1) and Fred Wilson (photo 2) are artists who problematize the traditional practices of the art museum. Struth's photographs, even though they capture the moment of interaction with a work of art and provide us with visual data about what happens in that exact moment, they remain silent and mysterious by emphasizing our impossibility of knowing what actually happens in the visitor's mind in that exact moment or the degree in which the interaction is successful. Fred Wilson is taking the role of the curator and reconstructs museum exhibits aiming to present the invisible. Specifically, he wishes to present those narratives that remain silent in the museum space and alert the visitor to the unspoken histories or perspectives.

Museum Architecture

An introduction to the historical changes that have informed current museological debates: charting the shift from the Enlightenment to Modernism and onto Postmodernism through an exploration of museum buildings.