Detail

„Showcase – work in progress“ does sound like a makeshift workaround, an apology for the fact that there is nothing to be seen: The showcase is empty, it contains no object. It IS part of the mis-en-scène though, part of the narration recounting what is collected, telling how things are displayed, relating which order underlies their array, and what constituted and presently constitutes the historical context. It is during a prolonged period of renovation that US-born artist Kaucyila Brooke photographs objects and showcases inside Vienna’s Natural History Museum, located just across the street from the MuseumsQuartier. Plainly recognizable in the photographs: the 1889 Ringstraße Museum’s palace-like interior spaces. The Natural History Museum had been sticking to its historical displays for a long time. For example, it is only in the mid-1990ies that the exhibition halls were outfitted with electrical lighting. Up until then, in winter, some exhibition halls had been closing at 2:00 P.M. – for lack of light. Kaucyila Brooke visited the Museum during its renovation in 2002. For three years, she documented work in progress. The transformation of interior spaces, produced blemishes and imperfections, empty showcases, and the remains of the original display – all indicate the altered concept of museum displays during the course of a century. The photographs point to the very history of collections and exhibitions, to an underlying colonial paradigm, whose precept was to conquer Nature, to collect and categorize according to arbitrarily conceived Western principles. In addition to the Ringstraße’s Art and Music Museums, the Natural History Museum presents itself as yet another mis-en-scène of Imperial power and dominance, donated by the Imperial Dynasty, as the facade says, “To the Empire of Nature and its Exploration”.