Cabinet of Curiosity Klaudia Cios
Marcel Duchamp Marcel Duchamp was a French painter, sculptor and writer who lived in 20th century. He was quite an extraordinary artist as he refused to accept set standards and principles of art system.
His most famous peace “LHOOQ” is a well-known “Mona Lisa” with the addition of mustage. This peace shows the best what kind of artist he was. The letters stands for “Elle a chaud au cul” what means, “she is not genital area”.
However I’m the most interested in his box valise work. Those are mostly the boxes with his work inside, what is something similar to my project. He was an artist so his work was obviously important for him, so he made few cabinets of curiosity out of it, together with other important things connected with art.
Frans Francken II Frans Francken II was on of the well-known Flemish painters from the family Francken. He probably developed his artistic skills while his apprentiship at his father’s studio and practicing with his uncle. He was mostly recognizable for his cabinet paintings, with the different themes, including historical and mythical.
I think of his work as interesting because of the quite similar project, which I’m doing myself. After looking at his painting, I think he was probably interested in history, and maybe religion, as back then the mythology and the was like a religion for the people, because people believed in gods from the mythology.
Domenico Remps I found him interesting because of the cabinet of curiosity painting, which is closely connected to my project as he painted what I am going to make, obviously with the different things inside.
This Cabinet of Curiosities is an oil canvas, painted in 1690’s by the Italian painter, Domenico Remps.
This painter blurs the boundary between realities and fictitious, at least it did in the time it was painted. This shows that many of the objects in there might not have existed in 1690’s, or they were very modern and hard to get.
I even found one website which uses this image as a navigation menu- when the user put the pointer on the different object it reveals a different text. I think this website shows how symbolic cabinets of curiosity and the objects they contain are, because each object hides a different story, and this is all cabinets of curiosity are all about.
Richard Hamilton
Hamilton was a British painter and collage artist. “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” was one of his collages, which is quite similar to my project as he, in his collages put thing that he thought was important to him. It’s similar because I am going to put important for me thing to the Cabinet of Curiosity. Hamilton puts lots of modernity in his collages, actually his collages are all about modernity, as he puts images of the most modern things, at the timing, and creates a room of modernity. He even places there an image of the modern woman and the mam. It shows that the modernity and technology was very important to him, or maybe he thought it was
important for the world and its development. Looking at this collage today, it doesn’t seem modern to me at all, as it past over 50 years since the collage was created. When I’m looking at this image, it’s just like I’ve been looking at the time capsule, as it contains important pieces of the life, an artist who lived at that time. I don’t like the image itself, however I think it has a very important meaning to us, as it shows what ordinary and maybe not used anymore things were long time ago, were very meaningful and making life easier. Those are things that we still have and mostly use; however we don’t pay attention to them as we always had them.
His Work
My Experiments
Cabinet Of Curiosity My Idea It took me really long time to find an idea for this project, and lately I thought a lot about the holidays when I was a child, and that was it. I always spend at my grandma’s summerhouse. It was a small village, big garden and the house was just before the forestnothing special there, however I think it was a haven for kids. It’s getting even better, few of my cousins were coming there as well- and you know how it is, the more of us, the
better, as we were playing till the dark. But back then, I don’t think I have realised how great it was, as it was just our usual summer holiday. Now I’m not going there anymore, as there is a complicated relationship between my mother and my aunt, and this is when I realised how wonderful it was. I thought I can make a box, and put there some old photos of me, my sister and my cousins; and some souvenirs from the holidays spend there.
My Box I decided to make my box out of the post parcel box, and to decorate it with the brown, creased packing paper. I tried to make an “old� effect. I have also cut out a big, rectangular hole, at the middle of the front part of
the box. Then I put there a plactic folder. I tried to make an impression of the window in there, which through you can look, and see some of the thing inside.
Things I Put Inside List Of Souvenirs I Found:
• Photos • Ailerons • Bicycle Safety Card • Drops for Dog Securing Him From Ticks and Fleas • Caps • Ship Pendant from Market • Cards
Testing of Arranging the Souvenirs Inside Of The Box Organized
Messy
I am going to arrange my cabinet of curiosity in messy way, because I think it looks better this way. The messy arragement makes it look much more like an old memory box.