Luka's Arts In NYC

Museums are rooted in Wunderkammers. They were personal museums for people who wanted to appreciate their own wonderful collection. Eventually these collections became public and that is what became museums. I think the mission of a museum is to share the wonder of art and the world around us with the public and to help people develop appreciation and knowledge of the art and other aspects of the world. The mission statement of The Museum of Natural History is “To discover, interpret and disseminate – through scientific research and self-education – knowledge about human cultures, the natural world and the universe”. Another example is the Museum of Modern Arts mission Statement, which is “ The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to being the foremost museum of modern art in the world.

The three types of collections that are discussed in Kimmelman’s article The Art of Collecting Light bulbs are: Rembrandts, Wunderkammers, and categorizing things. Rembrandts are things that give people a sense of nostalgia. They give a sense of history behind them. Some people who used this type of collection are people such as Walter Benjamin, who collected old books. The correlation is that he has a connection to the type of collection he has. He has enjoyed books and therefore feels a need to connect them. Another example that is in the text is of a Stalinist labor camp survivor who collected keys no longer in use. This probably reminded him of the camp that he was forced to be a prisoner of.

One of the other types is categorization. The idea of this collection is to categorize certain sections and sub-sections of a collection and type of art. A museum that did this was The Decoy Museum. It took wooden duck decoys and categorized them by certain distinctions that people would never guess to look. This correlation is that idea of needing to make order in things that don’t seem to need order or organizing things in a way that is easier to see correlations between the artwork that museums are known to do. Museums organize artwork with the intention of connecting certain types of artwork with others to give the audience the sense of a higher meaning that the whole collection shares.

The third is the Wunderkammern. A Wunderkammern is a “ cabinet of curiosities”. It is made up of rare and uncategorized types of objects. It was started in the Renaissance period in Europe. They were meant to organize things that seemed to be chaotic and unfitting.  They contained exotic and rare and unique items. They are displayed in shelves and drawers as well as all over walls. It was almost a closest of collections, which were often geological or from natural sciences. There is one image on the back of this of a Wunderkammer. It is from the Me Berlin Collectors Room Website. It is a photograph of the Wunderkammer. The title of the Wunderkammer is Oblricht. The country of origin is Austria. It is still around but was created from what I can tell During the Baroque period.

A Wunderkammer From http://www.me-berlin.com/?lang=en#/wunderkammer

One reason that people collect is to appreciate the art of other people. Michael Kimmelman says in his essay that a lot of people enjoy appreciating and looking at the art or things they collect. It is the aesthetic beauty of seeing all these creations that you find appealing all in one place. You get this sense of nostalgia as well as a sensation of a child in a candy store, where you can pick and enjoy any versions of the things you enjoy the most.
Another reason for collecting is to show off their massive collection. When I was little I collected Pokémon cards. I didn’t really collect for the reason of their aesthetic beauty. They were nice but it wasn’t that. It was being able t take them to my friend’s house or to my brother’s room and show them off. It was being able to say that I have the best collection. It was almost a competition. I wanted my friends and brother to respect and be in awe of the cards that I collected. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I had managed to collect such a strong and rare deck of cards.
The other reason I think for collecting is the art in collecting itself. When I went through the Guggenheim the way the art was set up was as important as the artwork itself. For example, when I went through Merce Cunningham the way that the videos were displayed was almost more telling of the piece than the piece itself. There is an art to display that can really ruin or strengthen the art that is displayed.