ME Collectors Room Berlin

During my time in Berlin in December I had to visit the ME Collectors Room! This gallery had a Cindy Sherman exhibition which was great to see as I've not seen much of her work in person before, but the main reason I went was for the collection of amazing and random artefacts from all over the world.

WUNDERKAMMER OLBRICHT

'Astonishment, discovery, understanding'

During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, princes, rulers and scholars set up their Kunst- and Wunderkammer: collecttors' rooms in which precious artworks (artificialia), rare phenomena of nature (naturalia), scientific instruments (scientifica), objects from strange worlds (exotica), and inexplicable items (mirabilia) were preserved. They served to demonstrate the wealth and power of the owner and reflected the standard of knowledge and view of the world at that time. 

The collection was initially restricted to a select circle, but over time it became accessible to a wider public. It is known, for example, that the Kunstkammer in Dresden admitted almost 800 visitors in 1648, which is a considerable number for the time. Not only nobles and diplomats traveled from far and wide to behold the Elector of Saxony's collection, but also artists, tradesmen, students, scholars, craftsmen, and even wedding parties. One of the most important Kunstkammer still exists today in Austria: Archduke Fernand II. From the Tyrol extended Castle Ambras above Innsbruck adding another complex of buildings to house his collections. 

Berlin also had its Kunstkammer. Founded by the Elector Joachim II. (ruled from 1535-1571), almost completely destroyed during the Thirty Years War, it was rebuilt by Elector Friedrich Wilhelm and eventually found its home under Friedrich III in the newly extended Stadtschloss (City Palace). Today the few remaining object have been distributed around different museums that have become the successors to the chambers of arts and wonders, albeit in a thematically differentiated way. 

Our Wunderkammer reanimates this tradition in Berlin once more. It provides as insight into the past and creates the very thing it was able to do some two to five centuries ago: to transport the visitor into a realm of sheer astonishment- whether by means of the legendary unicorn, ultimately expose as the tusk of a narwhal, an amber mirror flooded with light fashioned from the 'Gold of the North', the coconut chalice thatt came into the possession of Alexander von Humboldt and which is adorned with images of Brazilian cannibals, preserved specimens of a Nile crocodile and a great blue turaco, or cabinets that only reveal their mysteries to the curious eye.

The quality of the objects, numbering in excess of 200 from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, is unique and makes this Wunderkammer one of the most important private collections of its kind.

The collection places an emphasis on vanitas ('consider the fact that you will die'), itself a thematic strand that permeates me Collectors Room. In the Baroque period, death was already being staged with a mixture of devotion, interest, and humour- itself perhaps a form of overcoming the fear of finality? 

The scope for interpretation here is as broad as it is inscrutable. This is manifested in particular by an anatomical model dating from the second half of the 17th century featuring the laid out body of a pregnant woman whose organs and the foetus of can be removed. On the one hand this reflects the medical interest of its owner, on the other it prompts one to indulge in a playful handling of this Kunstkammer object. The notion of vanitas is conveyed in the form of a coffin; the wealth of the owner- as transitory as life itself- is represented by the choice of material for the small sculpture: ivory was considered the most precious substance of that era. Kunstkammer objects have the power to astonish, touch, fascinate, and draw the curious mind - captivated by a small, individual, encyclopedic universe - into the Kunst - and Wunderkammer. 

Quiet admiration of extraordinary art objects and natural phenomena is not the sole aim here. Sheer astonishment is at the forefront of a visit to Wunderkammers. Indeed, since the 16th Century it has been considered the first step towards gaining the knowledge and insight.

BELOW: Issuu link to 24 slides of my photographs of the exhibition and how I will use these artefacts as inspiration for my own COP3 practical work...