Category: Cabinet of Curiosity

Circles: shapes with no corners, no beginnings, no ends. Depending on who you ask, they either have no sides or an infinite number of them.  This abstraction of such simple geometry presents a unique opportunity for circles as an art form, seen immeasurably in our natural and artificial world.  With this in mind, one can find circles, rings, and disks all throughout their surroundings, each with their own context and distinctive meaning.

Such disparity in significance and theme prompted us to classify our circles into the three categories detailed in the Met’s piece on the Kunstkammer: naturalia (objects of natural means), artificialia (manmade items), and scientifica (innovations that forward humanity’s knowledge of the world).  We chose to arrange our cabinet beginning with the circles of naturalia, which showcase the round features brought about via nature’s mechanism of evolution.  The contrast between the sturdy, protective structures of turtles’ shells and the soft buds of blossoming flowers serves to underline the distinctive variations seen from hidden processes existent from the beginning of life.  We then shift focus to the opposite world of artificialia, and admire both the precision (and imprecision) of circles created by mankind, depending on their intended purposes as objects as well as their artistic interpretations.  The Lily Pond Fountain offers an amalgamation of the natural and manmade; the fountain device acts upon the water to create ripples throughout the pond, contributing to the calm and quaint atmosphere of the pond.  In contrast, the Tire Abstractions offer a more interpretive perspective on the rubber tires that keep us going, displaying the possibilities of what one can become.  Lastly, we cast the spotlight on our curated circles of scientifica– that is, those circles that we see in manmade items that serve a greater pragmatic use.  These marvels exist as the result of humanity’s desire to understand the unknown and conquer it for the sake of advancement- clocks display the passage of time and put everything in our lives into a temporal perspective, while chandeliers are a stylistic byproduct of the desire to illuminate the darkness.   Such variation stemming from the mere common connection of circles provided us with a creative impetus to explore Brooklyn College through the lens of an artist, searching for something that we may find in a multitude of forms.

By Kelly Esses, Quoc-Huy Ly, Paul Mastrokostas, and Bren Tawil

Works Cited:

Koeppe, Wolfram. “Collecting for the Kunstkammer.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I.e. The Met Museum, Oct. 2002, www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kuns/hd_kuns.htm.

By: Amber Khemlani, Anastasiya Chabotsk, Nicolas Florimonte, and Evelyn Perez-Ortiz

             Our cabinet focuses on the objects that are prevalent in all of the students’ lives at Brooklyn College, especially for freshmen, who have just embarked on their new journey as curious college students trying to survive their first year in this new environment. After being accustomed to their cozy high school buildings, considered all-knowing after four years of seeing the same walls and doors, it may seem terrifying to enter a land of unknown. This cabinet familiarizes students with the day to day life at Brooklyn College with things that are necessary for making it out alive; even with the academic pressures and rigors.

             These photos exhibit the parts of Brooklyn College that students need to energize themselves such as the water fountains, vending machines, the microwave, and the ATM when money is short, studying is long, and the stomach is craving bubble tea. There are also photos of items that help students get through their day and make their lives at college easier such as the printer and the bulletin board that has all of the events posted on it. And, where would we be without our id’s, cards that freshmen keep in a clean and safe spot while older students tend to lose, damage, smudge, or fail to renew. These facilities ease students into their new lives of being adults on their own to face the world.

As humans, we have a tendency to focus on the finer details of conventional artwork found in museums. Yet, we usually tend to neglect the more intricate details of the beauties found in nature. As a group, we decided to pay close attention to the details in things that are naturally accustomed to the eye. Our pieces transition from accepted aspects of artwork to more overlooked ideas that are concealed by our subconscious.

The textures vary in each piece of art— starting from a marble sculpture to an oil painting, both found indoors. Our artwork transitions outdoors to show that beauty can be found in the simplicity of nature and not only in the traditional art setting. Textures and colors both enhance the world around us, and our cabinet depicts this exact notion, especially around our everyday lives at Brooklyn College.

Daliah Ben-Ari, Aviva Gonter, Morielle Tolchin, and Jenny Yedid

The theme of our cabinet is the connection between the nature around Brooklyn College and art. We admired the nature on campus and found art that is reminiscent of these curiosities. What emerged was a duality between nature and art, and so we decided to format our post by creating a web. Our cabinet begins with a broad view of Brooklyn College and ends with snapshots of smaller natural elements on the East Quad. In our web, each natural element is tied to a corresponding artwork.

The photograph from the top of Boylan Hall is mirrored with a painting that shows a girl looking over a cliff. Since our cabinet has a significant focus on nature, we decided to then include the area of the campus with the most natural diversity: the lily pond. The lily pond is then compared to two different works of art. The first is a sculpture that contains tree branches, and the second is a painting of a frog-like man in a lily pond, which reminded us of our own pond. Additionally, the flowers near the pond are paralleled by a black and white painting of flowers found in the library. We were able to find curiosities in both the subtle details of campus and the macroscopic image from which we began.

-Lauryn Andrews, Carina D’Urso, Asma Sadia, Jessica Betancourt