Facta #2

Little thought is given to it, but museums, which
in most cases keep the past (except, of course, those
dedicated to contemporary art), also have a past. Less
related to aesthetics and the enjoyment beauty than to
science and discovery, the cabinets of curiosities, or the
Wonder Rooms, write this pre-history of museums. Both
denominations, with all the inescapable poetics they
carry, express the effort of those who embarked into the
unknown at a time of great explorations and discoveries of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Explorers who crossed seas and lands collected rare or
strange objects of the three branches that biology was
divided into at the time: animalia, vegetalia and mineralia.
Also entered into the list of this collectionist effort were
those human doings strange to the eyes of those who
collected them, since we speak of "discoverers" and their
"discoveries" (quotation marks draw attention to how
relative is this dynamic of who discovered what).
The Cabinets of Curiosities were usually a display of exotic
things and new findings coming from explorations or
technically advanced instruments, as was the case of the
collection of Tsar Peter, the Great, who raised Russia to
another window of thinking upon his returning from
an expedition through the Netherlands, from where he
brought topographic maps, books and the invention of
Isaac Newton, as well as technical teachers, coaches,
doctors and educated men from all areas. In other cases,
the Rooms of Wonders were samples of pictures and
paintings, such as ones the Archduke Leopoldo Guillermo
promoted and that could effectively be considered as the
precursor of today's art museums.
The cabinets had a key role in the development of modern
science, although they reflected the popular opinion of
their time - so, it wasn’t uncommon to find things taken
as dried dragon's blood or skeletons of mythical animals.
The editing of catalogs, usually illustrated, allowed access
and distribution of content to scientists of the time. Even
in some encyclopedias and illustrated dictionaries from
the first half of the twentieth century this type of editing
still echoed. Generally, the topic is still operated by the
publishing market. A good example is the collection
"The Cabinet of Curiosities", released by the publisher
Dantes in eight volumes in 2008. It deals with material
that had been researched since 1999.
Five of the titles make up a kind of "Brasiliana" (term with
which the concept of the bibliophile and historian Rubens
Borba de Moraes, designates books about Brazil - in whole
or in part, printed or written abroad, from the sixteenth
century until the late nineteenth century; and the books
by Brazilian authors printed abroad until 1808): They were
written by apothecaries, naturalists and curious people
born in Brazil in the eighteenth century with the purpose
of narrating, classifying or researching the Brazilian
territory, its nature and its potential at a time when the
new world and its articles were not even consolidated
entries in encyclopedias. The other three titles deal with
technical terms and link all the other pieces.
The Cabinets of Curiosities disappeared during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, being replaced by
official institutions and private collections. The objects
considered more interesting or valuable were transferred to
art and natural history museums that were being initiated.
They had great importance in the pioneering study of
certain disciplines of biology by creating collections of
fossils, shells and insects.
But as in the editorial scope, the concept and the actual
conformation of the Cabinets ended up reverberating
beyond its time, until today. They are, for example,
reference to production in the world of arts. Several works
of the controversial British Damien Hirst (best known for
his exhibitions of dead animals preserved in formaldehyde)
are connected with the aesthetics of the Room of Wonders,
such as the "Trinity Cabinets", which display objects of
pharmacology on shelves. Names like Tim Holtz and
Mark Dion also develop works that dialogue with it.
In Brazil, the graphic artist, product designer and
member of the Gambiologia collective, Paulo Henrique
"Ganso", have already cast a glance on the topic with his
"Cabinet of Curiosities Jean Baptiste 333" - piece that was
part of the exhibition "Gambiólogos", presented in Belo
Horizonte in 2010.
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