MICROSTORY OF ART

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Dedicated to Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities; cabinet of wonder)

(Picture: Minneapolis Institute of Art)

Wunderkammer (Interviews with Bruegel VIII)

(27.10.2023)

– Mr. Bruegel, do you know what a samurai is?
– A Flemish warrior?
– Yes, exactly. Can you imagine the armour of a samurai in a Japanese collection?
– You mean: in a Japanese wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities)?
– Well, collection or wunderkammer – I don’t know if the concept of wunderkammer did or does exist in Japanese culture, but yes, if you like: the armour of a Flemish warrior in a Japanese wunderkammer.
– A little bit ridiculous, don’t you think so?
– Not at all, since armour, the armour of Japanese warriors often do appear in European (or Western) wunderkammer collections. I even have seen myself a, well, Japanese Flemish warrior, once in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, turning that museum a bit into a wunderkammer. And speaking of museums: do you think that there is a wunderkammer quality of works of art, just as one does speak today of works of art that have a: museums’ quality?
– I don’t know if I can define museums’ quality – perhaps this is when something appears to be relevant, because the art trade declares something to be relevant, attributing just a quality to something that not necessarily is redolent of qualities; but a wunderkammer quality is more interesting, well, a rather new concept: it might mean that something, a work of art, encapsulates much more than it actually appears to do (which would be the opposite of the aforementioned art trade ›museums’ quality‹), or it appears just to encapsulate something, creating an interesting fiction of an object being representative of much more than it actually is in itself, but not necessarily for commercial purposes.
– Does the armour of a Flemish warrior have a wunderkammer quality? Or is this just the effect of a samurai appearing in a wunderkammer collection?
– Well, it can be both, I think. The Flemish warrior, in a Japanese collection, must seem to be or to become representative for a whole fictional world, the mythic West, as it might appear to Japanese eyes, because it just appears in a collection. Does it have, in itself, a wunderkammer quality? Yes, it is perhaps one representation of a warrior, one embodiment of this very basic idea or human role, that does exist in the cosmos, also in other worlds, perhaps, possibly beyond planet Earth, and a wunderkammer is thought to be a representation of the cosmos.
– Speaking of your own pictures: do they have a wunderkammer quality?
– Yes and no. Yes, because you might see one or two of my pictures as a wunderkammer in itself; but no, they are not wunderkammer objects, because perhaps, they require a different reading or seeing than a wunderkammer object, which makes sense to be read or seen as a representation of whole dimensions, areas, worlds of ideas and so on, that appear in the cosmos. But of course one might also imagine an order of the cosmos in which my pictures would be seem as one basic category: the category of Bruegel pictures.
– Which would be a whole cosmos within the cosmos?
– Yes, exactly. And that perhaps is the most sublime concept of wunderkammer: Falling from one world into another, because, accidentally, or while musing, you just might find a key, or a door, or you might have fallen into a trap, which catapults you into another order of things. Into the order of Bruegel pictures, why not?
– And from there? Is there a door? Is escape possible?
– You mean if my pictures are an escape room? No, I do not think of them to be that. But my pictures indeed have many inbuilt doors. But if you walk through these doors, by walking through these doors, you might be beamed into different universes, while staying in the picture all the same.
– Sounds complicated, but fascinating. So a last question: are there samurai to be found in your pictures?
– You mean Flemish warriors? Yes, I do think so. One or two.

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