This thesis argues that the concepts of curiosity and the marvellous resurface at different moments in cultural history, most notably in periods of transition and epistemological uncertainty. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘culture of curiosity,’ which is characterised by the amateur collector’s engagement with rare and boundary-crossing objects in the process of assembling a cabinet of curiosities, presents a rich contextual foil against which to place the practice of the Surrealists and of some contemporary artists and curators; it has profound resonances for the relationship between modernism and postmodernism, and between art and science. Within modernism, the Surrealists initiated a large-scale, fundamental probing of the principles underlying rationalist thought, and of the categories and hierarchies of academic art and bourgeois taste, which had dominated Western culture since the Enlightenment; and within postmodernism, artists and curators who revert to practices of collecting and appropriate protocols of the natural sciences question institutional frameworks of knowledge production, identity formation and meaning making through material artefacts. In both instances, curiosity and the marvellous – and the related themes of classification and dilettantism – have emerged as especially effective and resonant means of reading dominant culture against the grain. More specifically, this thesis contends that the Surrealist marvellous is rooted in the early modern discourse of the marvellous and monstrous which was characterised by ‘paradoxes of classification.’ This is particularly evident in the Surrealists’ engagement with objects testifying to the natural marvellous and the natural fantastic: stones, coral and insects, among other things and creatures, carry distinctly subversive implications of obscuration, entanglement and excess, metamorphosis and mimicry, and deviation and transgression, straddling the boundaries between art and nature, and art and representation. Furthermore, contemporary artistic and curatorial practice drawing on the ‘age of the marvellous’ – which, in this perspective, extends to Surrealism, with the potential to recur at any time thereafter – is primarily concerned with overcoming ‘white cube’ and Beaux-Arts-Museum historicity, aesthetics and display rationales by reintroducing subjectivity, doubt and digression into the context of the museum and the sciences. In this regard, scepticism towards intellectual certainties and accomplished systems of classification leads to an informed recourse to moments in history when the meanings of objects were being constantly negotiated rather than set in stone.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T16:18:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 120366.pdf: 18519895 bytes, checksum: 9b2538e92ad75f533f1ec5b8476c059a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-20 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Inventory of Invasive Species, 2014 artistic experiment accomplished during my Master s degree research It inspired by the traditional curiosities cabinets. Each, portable cabinet consists of botanical illustrations, photographs, herbarium species, tinctures, people s narratives and symbolic objects concern to the cultural imaginary of invasive plants. The inventory interpolates the worlds of art and science, specifically biology. The development of this work was motivated by the works of the artists, Walmor Correa, Juan Fontcuberta, Mark Dion, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, as well as the philosophical fiction Vampyroteuthis Infernalis Flusser that has the collaboration of Louis Bec and the interviews with Marta de Menezes, Leonel Moura and Ivan Henriques, artists who work in this border of art/science. The interviews focused on the collaboration between the artists and scientists, technologies and research laboratories científica1 access, showing some of the possibilities for this context. / Inventário de Espécies Invasoras, 2014 experimento artístico realizado durante minha pesquisa de mestrado inspira-se nos gabinetes de curiosidades tradicionais. Cada gabinete, portátil, é composto por ilustrações botânicas, fotografias, exsicatas, tinturas, narrativas de pessoas e objetos simbólicos referentes ao imaginário cultural das plantas invasoras. O inventário interpola os universos da arte e da ciência, em específico a biologia. O desenvolvimento do trabalho teve como motivação as obras dos artistas Walmor Correa, Juan Fontcuberta, Mark Dion, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, a ficção filosófica Vampyroteuthis Infernalis de Vilém Flusser em colaboração com Louis Bec, e as entrevistas realizadas com Marta de Menezes, Leonel Moura e Ivan Henriques, artistas que atuam nesta fronteira arte/ciência. As entrevistas focaram as colaborações entre os artistas e os cientistas, o acesso às tecnologias e aos laboratórios de pesquisa científica, mostrando algumas das possibilidades de criação nesse contexto.

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PhDr. Kateřina Štěpánová, MA Abstrakt disertační práce, 2013 An Exotic Artefact Study of the position of an object from Fourth World in the Czech culture Abstract This thesis deals with the anthropological and museological approach to the presentation of exotic artefacts in the Western culture. It responds to the absence of theoretical studies and papers on the possibilities of perception and presentation of these objects in the Czech Republic. In principle, it is mainly inspired by foreign literature and author's own experience with Western expositions. Thesis contains a theoretical and an empirical part. The subject of the first part is the analysis of key approaches to the non-European ethnographic objects, their potential and different possibilities of their public presentation. Main attention is focused on key topics of anthropology of art frequently discussed by the international scientific community. Methodologically, this part presents the analysis, and the interpretation of primary and secondary literature. In the empirical part there are shown results of own effort to analyze the problem. The included application part describes realization of the particular program created on basis of museum-pedagogy. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the development of perception, and to the presentation...

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Since its foundation between 1410 and 1414 the University of St Andrews has acquired what can be considered to be ‘artefacts of significance’. This somewhat nebulous phrase is used to denote items that have, for a variety of reasons, been deemed to have some special import by the University, and have been displayed or otherwise presented in a context in which this status has been made apparent. The types of artefacts in which particular meaning has been vested during the centuries under consideration include items of silver and gold (including the maces, sacramental vessels of the Collegiate Church of St Salvator, collegiate plate and relics of the Silver Arrow archery competition); church and college furnishings; artworks (particularly portraits); sculpture; and ethnographic specimens and other items described in University records as ‘curiosities’ held in the University Library from c. 1700-1838. The identification of particular artefacts as significant for certain reasons in certain periods, and their presentation and display, may to some extent reflect the University's values, preoccupations and aspirations in these periods, and, to some degree, its identity. Consciously or subconsciously, the objects can be employed or operate as signifiers of meaning, representing or reflecting matters such as the status, authority and history of the University, its breadth of learning and its interest and influence in spheres from science, art and world cultures to national affairs. This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of the growth and development of the University's holdings of 'artefacts of significance' from its foundation to the mid-19th century, and in some cases (especially portraits) beyond this date. It also offers insights into how the University viewed and presented these items and what this reveals about the University of St Andrews, its identity, which changed and developed as the living institution evolved, and the impressions that it wished to project.