The Magpie Museum of Disorderly Inquiry
The Magpie Museum of Disorderly Inquiry is a collection of objects, all made from glass, and arranged in the style of a cabinet of curiosities, or wunderkammer. The objects are based on real things, a chambered nautilus, a handkerchief, a skeletal leaf, an orrery, but they are not exact replicas. Each is a small vignette, an impression of an object, rather than an attempt to rigorously render reality. The manmade objects in this collection are from the past, but rarely a specific past.
A collection brings together objects to illustrate an idea. This collection illustrates the idea that objects do not exist in a void, they connect with other objects across time to inform our understanding of the world. It illustrates the idea that learning about one corner of the world will to lead to unexpected connections with other corners of the world.
This Museum collects and displays fabricated objects of material cultural history. By “material culture history” I mean two things, both represented in this work. One is the history that can be deduced or extrapolated by analyzing an object questioning where it was made, when it was made, who made it, for use by whom, how it was actually used, where it may have travelled to get to where it is now, how it was discarded and how it came to be in its present situation. It is a way of reading stories from objects where texts might not exist.
The other aspect of material culture is the stories and meanings that accrue upon objects throughout object life cycles. Maybe a thing was made to commemorate an event, maybe it was given as a love token or maybe it was broken under notable circumstances. Objects collect histories.
The objects in this museum tell real and imagined histories. There is a phenomena by which a story is so perfect that it doesn’t matter whether it is true or not. Even with its falsity it tells a truth about what it is to be human.
We do not remember real events, we remember narratives: this happened after that, this led to that. Stories hold our memories together, we recall real events by means of stories.
I have made the objects out to glass to further remove them from their original context. An object taken out of context becomes strange, unfamiliar and more visible. When we see something every day it can disappear, taken out of context, it becomes important again.
I have made these objects in an effort to better understand them. To make something requires an understanding of that thing, an more thorough understanding than that which can be achieved merely by looking at a thing. It endows the maker with a tacit knowledge that is physically verifiable.
The objects in this Museum commemorate objects that have accrued stories. The tiny deer is a glass replica of a plastic deer made to imitate ivory and meant to be part of a Bavarian cuckoo clock, probably a cheap one made for export. The plastic deer came to be in my possession because it was in the pocket of a shirt. The shirt was given to me by my friend Anne, she didn’t know the deer was in the pocket. The shirt was given to my friend Anne by a friend of hers who splits her time between Bavaria and New Orleans. It was Anne’s Bavarian friend who put the deer in the pocket. Months after finding the deer in the shirt, in Bavaria, I met the husband of the woman who originally owned the shirt. I still had the plastic deer in my pocket and I showed him and told him the story.
The ungainly white cups with coral are meant to imitate turned ivory cups from the 17th century made to demonstrate the exquisite skill of the human hand. They were often included in cabinets of curiosity under the category Artifiicialia, near-miracles of human artifice (in the making and building sense of the word). They represented a pinnacle of human ability to collect tacit, non-written knowledge.
I search in historical objects for evidence of shared humanity with the people long passed. The ability of human beings to act on materials and create beautiful, delicate, detailed, almost miraculous objects should not be forgotten. We should remember that these objects exist and we should remember that we can create them, we are heir to this human possibility.
Some of the objects are open-ended, waiting to accrue stories. Some trace through more than one story. All are potential repositories of material histories.
A collection brings together objects to illustrate an idea. This collection illustrates the idea that objects do not exist in a void, they connect with other objects across time to inform our understanding of the world. It illustrates the idea that learning about one corner of the world will to lead to unexpected connections with other corners of the world.
This Museum collects and displays fabricated objects of material cultural history. By “material culture history” I mean two things, both represented in this work. One is the history that can be deduced or extrapolated by analyzing an object questioning where it was made, when it was made, who made it, for use by whom, how it was actually used, where it may have travelled to get to where it is now, how it was discarded and how it came to be in its present situation. It is a way of reading stories from objects where texts might not exist.
The other aspect of material culture is the stories and meanings that accrue upon objects throughout object life cycles. Maybe a thing was made to commemorate an event, maybe it was given as a love token or maybe it was broken under notable circumstances. Objects collect histories.
The objects in this museum tell real and imagined histories. There is a phenomena by which a story is so perfect that it doesn’t matter whether it is true or not. Even with its falsity it tells a truth about what it is to be human.
We do not remember real events, we remember narratives: this happened after that, this led to that. Stories hold our memories together, we recall real events by means of stories.
I have made the objects out to glass to further remove them from their original context. An object taken out of context becomes strange, unfamiliar and more visible. When we see something every day it can disappear, taken out of context, it becomes important again.
I have made these objects in an effort to better understand them. To make something requires an understanding of that thing, an more thorough understanding than that which can be achieved merely by looking at a thing. It endows the maker with a tacit knowledge that is physically verifiable.
The objects in this Museum commemorate objects that have accrued stories. The tiny deer is a glass replica of a plastic deer made to imitate ivory and meant to be part of a Bavarian cuckoo clock, probably a cheap one made for export. The plastic deer came to be in my possession because it was in the pocket of a shirt. The shirt was given to me by my friend Anne, she didn’t know the deer was in the pocket. The shirt was given to my friend Anne by a friend of hers who splits her time between Bavaria and New Orleans. It was Anne’s Bavarian friend who put the deer in the pocket. Months after finding the deer in the shirt, in Bavaria, I met the husband of the woman who originally owned the shirt. I still had the plastic deer in my pocket and I showed him and told him the story.
The ungainly white cups with coral are meant to imitate turned ivory cups from the 17th century made to demonstrate the exquisite skill of the human hand. They were often included in cabinets of curiosity under the category Artifiicialia, near-miracles of human artifice (in the making and building sense of the word). They represented a pinnacle of human ability to collect tacit, non-written knowledge.
I search in historical objects for evidence of shared humanity with the people long passed. The ability of human beings to act on materials and create beautiful, delicate, detailed, almost miraculous objects should not be forgotten. We should remember that these objects exist and we should remember that we can create them, we are heir to this human possibility.
Some of the objects are open-ended, waiting to accrue stories. Some trace through more than one story. All are potential repositories of material histories.
| Click below for a PDF of the Magpie Museum of Disorderly Inquiry catalog |