Object of the Week: Museum 'Junk'

Over the winter break, I visited the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands and I found the object I wanted to pick for our first ‘Object of the Week’ which was this work by artist Matthias Garff, called ‘Insektenkasten’ (Insect Case).

The work was part of a wider exhibition called ‘Microcosm – the world in a Wunderkammer’, looking at the history behind Cabinets of Curiosity and exploring the Eurocentric collections, bringing modern art into dialogue with genuine specimens to critique this historical, Eurocentric method of collecting objects. There were different parts of the exhibition, exploring the sorts of objects that would be found in a Cabinet of Curiosity such as Naturalia and Artificialia.

This contemporary piece was found in the section on Naturalia, playing on your expectations of traditional specimen cases with playful modern materials. From afar, you can’t see the difference between the real specimen case it is presented next to, but when closer up you can see that the artist uses ‘rubbish’ found in modern urban life to create these playful creatures. It reminds us of the importance to respect the planet that we share with animals, and not to pollute or damage the earth further.

For more information on this exhibition, you can visit the Drents Museum website: https://drentsmuseum.nl/en/exhibitions/microcosm-the-world-in-a-wunderkammer-2

Katy Lawrence is currently a student on the MA Museum Studies program at the University of Leicester.