Detail

There is no echo of melancholy or nostalgia for a lost unity of history, nature, art and science in Ingeborg Strobl's contemporary adaptation of Renaissance cabinets of curiosities. On the contrary, in a text that forms part of the installation, she cites the colonial and exploitative background of historical cabinets of curiosities. Strobl's selection of her "precious objects" sets her apart from this greed for exotic objects. The sense of wonder her Wunderkammer aims to inspire is akin to a sense of awe at exceptionally valuable objects, but diverges from it in one crucial respect: she does not seek things that are valuable due to their expensive materials or some supernatural aura, instead tracking down the extraordinary in places where it is usually not suspected, namely in ordinary life, recognized in and of itself as an extraordinary miracle. Strobl demonstrates this through simple objects, in which the natural and artificial come together. Knick-knacks gifted by friends and acquaintances figure among the curiosities, objects that unobtrusively symbolize personal stories.