24 Oct. 2019 Anti museum

The project as I said before could be considered as an anti-museum presentation. A museum tries to create a comprehensible linear presentation of history, I aspire to do the exact opposite. This can be reflected on my process, for instance when I try to figure out the structure of a painting or the narrative behind it, I initially get triggered by a general idea, a story I heard somewhere, character that cut my attention, a novel that had an impact on me. From that point on I start to experiment in order to configure the image. Sometimes placing diverse and different characters side by side suddenly creates a link between them, a kind of connection that unveils and unwind the poetry of the image. The process ruins linear continuity of the narration. The artworks I choose to create are glimpses of a different universe, if someone expands this statement the same principal is attributed to the nature and definition of a museum. The only difference is that the museums must display these glimpses of the past in a comprehensible order.

There is a major distinction between history and art, the former tries to set information in order the latter tries to disrupt that order for expressing the agonies, fears, and questions of existence. Art does not seek for answers, is just a consolation of our existential agonies. I truly support the idea that narrative painting is not the equivalent of a novel in a visual medium, the analogy is more accurate if we define painting as visual poetry.

The reason I deem my project an anti-museum is because many of my references and sources come from the discipline of history. The goal is to create an amalgam of images derived from history, everyday observation and narrations that I find interesting and intriguing. History, thoughts, memories heroes from books and movies all take an a archetypical form, intervene in each others era, the linearity of the story is dismantled, in order to be conducted through pictorial representation of a distorted version of our world.

While I was searching about museums I discovered Ole Worm’s cabinet. Ole Worm was a Danish natural historian and historian that lived in the first half of the 17th century. He established one of the first curiosity cabinets in which were displayed artifacts and relics of the new world, taxidermed animas and fossils alongside with engravings of his personal collection (On the right: engraving of the time depicting the frontispiece from the

Museum Wormianum depicting Wormius' cabinet of curiosities) . All over the western world this kind of exhibitions were very popular and curiosity cabinets became a kind of proto museums although they lacked any professional and academic approach. The displays ranged from genetic anomalies to works of art and their audience was mainly aristocrats. Albeit these places are a seminal and prominent point in the future development of modern museums and the science of archeology they are the most naïve way of presenting a museum’s display, they blended eras and disciplines in a way that creates a misconception of the past however from an artistic point of view they are very interesting. Curiosity cabinets distorted the past and mixed different elements creating the exact opposite of a museum.