The Kunstkammer: An Art of Serious Play

The incidence of play is not associated with any particular stage of civilization or view of the universe. Any thinking person can see at a glance that play is a thing on its own, even if his language possesses no general concept to express it. Play cannot be denied. You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.

Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (1950)

 

In sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe there arose a phenomena of collecting and displaying all manners of objects and artifacts known or discovered at the time. Such collections comprised natural specimens, man-made objects and so-called “curiosities.” The patrons of these “cabinets of curiosities” were as varied as the objects themselves. From botanists to philosophers, aristocrats to priests, the fervor to obtain and study these items affected all who possessed access either through wealth or association with a royal courts or universities. The collections themselves were no less multifarious; some focused on a specific interest such as geology, while others embraced a more encyclopedic spirit. Equally diverse, as well, were the modes of display, from small cabinets to multiple rooms, and even entire gardens.

Yet what defined these collections – known variously as Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, or studioli? What set them apart from merely being assemblages of artifacts or luxury goods? The answer lies in the objects themselves, in the heightened sense of interaction – of play – both within and among the items, and most of all with the viewer.  

The objects in this exhibition evince, both on their own and in dialogue with surrounding works, the polarities and complexities of the Kunstkammer as a mutable and polyvalent space. Each item displays multiple playful blurrings of seemingly dichotomous concepts, from obvious juxtapositions of naturalia and artificia to subtler exchanges of domestic versus exotic.

While this exhibition concerns specifically the phenomenon of the Kunstkammer and the zeal for wonder prevailing throughout Europe during that time, this investigation is no less relevant to contemporary society. It offers not only a new perspective with which to consider objects, museums, and collections of all sorts, but also a heightened awareness of the “play” element in our own lives. As in the kunstkammer objects, evidence of such an inherent fun in playing may be found in popular social phenomenon such as Pinterest or even internet memes, where recycled texts and images are wittily combined and recombined. As the philosopher and playwright Friedrich Schiller once mused in Letters Upon The Aesthetic Education of Man (1794), “Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”