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This is an online event only. The Zoom link will be sent out to you by email a couple of hours before the start of the event.
This talk traces the enduring fascination with Cabinets of Curiosities: early modern collections of rare, exotic, and enigmatic objects that sought to map the wonder and vastness of the universe in miniature. Often seen as precursors to the modern museum, these “Wunderkammern” were not merely displays of wealth or conquest but intricate systems of knowledge-making that blurred the boundaries between art, nature, science, and spirituality.
By examining the origins of collecting through these eclectic assemblages, this talk explores how the desire to categorize, possess, and marvel continues to shape contemporary art practices. From artists’ studios to digital platforms, the cabinet reemerges as a metaphor for fragmented and reconfigured knowledges, curated identities, and the longing to impose order on chaos.
In revisiting the Cabinet of Curiosities, we uncover not only a genealogy of collecting but also its emotional, aesthetic, and existential appeal in a world increasingly defined by complexity and uncertainty.
Giovanni Aloi is an art historian specializing in the representation of nature in art. He is the Editor of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture and of the University of Minnesota Press series 'Art after Nature'.
His books include Speculative Taxidermy (2018), Lucian Freud – Herbarium (2019), and Botanical Revolutions (2025).
Photo: Robert Chase Heishman and Robert Salazar, 2025
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