Wunderkammer (again and again)

After reading Umberto Eco's Infinity of Lists, thoughts of the wunderkammer reappeared (as they often do) in addition to the presentation of collections based on old curiosity cabinets. Here are some images that I have pondered over the past couple weeks featured in Eco's book.

Johann Georg Hainz, Collector's Cabinet, 1666, Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle

From Eco (page 203): "Most of what remains of the Wunderkammern are pictorial representations or etchings in their catalogs. Sometimes they were made up of hundreds of tiny shelves holding stones, shells, the skeletons of curious animals and sometimes masterpieces of the taxidermist's art capable of producing non existing animals. Other times they are cupboards, like miniature museums, full of compartments containing items that, removed from their original context, seem to tell senseless or incongruous stories."

Reliquary Urn with pebbles from the Holy Land, 17th century, Paris, Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée


 A place that I must visit someday: the Museo del Tempo Ozzano Taro.

The three images above come from this source.

Part of me wants to spend years toiling away on a site-specific wunderkammer that no one is aware of much like Marcel Duchamp's Etant Donné.

Martin Parr from "Small World"

Martin Parr, Florence, Italy, 1987-94


Martin Parr, Pantheon, Rome, 1987-94



Martin Parr, Pisa, Italy, 1987-94


Spanish Steps, Rome, Italy, 1987-94

Paul Strand's "The Lusetti Family, Luzzara, Italy, 1953

From The Getty website: "In the early 1950s Paul Strand spent six weeks in the rural northern Italian town of Luzzara, located on the Po River. He traveled the countryside with local townsman Valentino Lusetti, whose family Strand photographed arranged across the front of their family home. This group portrait includes Valentino's widowed mother Anna, standing with a solemn expression in the darkened doorway, and four of his brothers: Bruno, Guerrino, Afro, and Nino, none of whom look directly at the camera."

Artwork I was most surprised to learn was created in Italy

Robert Smithson's Asphalt Rundown, Rome, Italy, 1969



[For the record, Smithson also did a glue pour in Vancouver and a concrete pour in Chicago the same year.]

Henri Cartier Bresson's Italy

Tuscany, Italy, 1933


Scanno, Italy, 1951


Salerno, Italy, 1933


Rome, Italy, 1959


Naples, Italy, 1960


Torcello near Venice, 1953

Days 51 - 65: Italia

Ed Ruscha, Hello I Must Be Going

In an effort to pack light for the first time in my life, I will not be bringing my laptop to Italy. I've struggled with this decision for weeks, thinking about buying an iPad so I could update the blog but still be weighted down with my big camera. That wasn't the greatest solution either so I acquired a small camera (that I've plugged incessantly in previous posts) and my only access to the world online will be through my phone at irregular intervals. It's the first time my summer project will not be updated as the work transpires. I don't think it's an ideal situation but that's the way it is has to be for my own sanity as I traipse across Northern Italy through big cities, small towns, over land and water with minimal luggage. I am off for a couple weeks but never fear... one entry will be posted a day until I return... all but one are Italian centric.

This is all in an effort not to look like this:


Alec Soth, Untitled from Perfect Strangers, 1994