University of Minnesota Press The Moving Image: The Journal of The Association of Moving Image Archivists

Cabinets of Wonders: On Creating and Collecting
Author(s): Jan Švankmajer

Source: The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists,
Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall 2011), pp. 103-105
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
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forum 103
Cabinets of Wonders II, even when it wasn’t fashionable, and he

was judged as a bad ruler and a freak. I admire
On Creating and Collecting him just because he was a bad ruler who ne-
glected his duties in government for alchemy
J an Š vankmajer and his collections, and because he created
an unbelievable cabinet of wonders to which
Translated from the Czech by he admitted only chosen people, regardless
Gabriel M. Paletz and Ondřej Kálal of title, with no gawkers to desecrate it. He
blithely ruined the empire for his desires. He
For me, obsession is the start of everything, didn’t give a shit about the war with Turkey, sat
and I invoke her as the most important muse, in the middle of his curiosities, and dreamed,
for her energy is desire. I don’t make too much transforming his life.
of a distinction between creating and collect- I’ve been collecting things my whole life.
ing. Both are directed by the principle of pas- Their artistic, collectable, or actual value is not
sion, and in both, I’m basically passive. The the decisive factor but rather the imaginative
objects of my desire seek me out, not I them, power glowing out of them, which can melt
and it’s similar with the subjects and objects my spirit, that in turn can transmute base into
of my movies. I’m like a sea sponge. But when precious metals. There are many formulas for
I’m soaking, then it’s heavily: this is what my producing a sorcerer’s stone. The old alchemist
obsession actually entails. manuscripts mention sulfur, mercury, salt, or
I don’t care for either of the words archive lead, but not the chemical elements of sulfur,
or curator. They’re redolent of documentation mercury, and salt; rather they are “live” sulfur,
or museum work, neither of which interests “live” mercury, “live” salt. It’s similar with the
me. Each creation involves me from the mo- objects I collect. These are only “live” objects,
ment it transcends something that we can call full of substances, memories, and emotions,
a document of a period; that is, because of its which have gone through a ritual. And although
many meanings, an imaginative work is always they are usually old things, which already have
able to accumulate new interpretations and the essential part of life behind them, with me,
evoke new ones, as times change. An imagina- it’s not an antiquarian interest.
tive work is always able to react to the pres- [André] Breton once wrote that the most
ent, even if it originated in an entirely differ- fantastic thing about the fantastic is that it’s
ent era, as a reaction to an entirely different real. The surrealists never looked for the fan-
impulse. tastic outside of this world. Science fiction
I will always prefer a cabinet of wonders didn’t and doesn’t interest them. If I place daily
to a museum, as it has a completely differ- objects in my movies or art pieces in unrealistic
ent function from either a museum or a big relation to one another, it’s because I want to
state gallery. Whereas museums and galleries evoke doubts in spectators about their everyday
are edifying or “aesthetically cultivate” us, a reality: to disturb the common utilitarianism
cabinet of wonders initiates us. After leaving that steamrolls this civilization. In connection
it, we are transformed. Museums are objective; with this, it’s possible to speak of the slavery
a cabinet of wonders is subjective. Museums of utilitarianism. “Living” objects are becoming
are organized rationally; a cabinet of wonders ones that are not alive, with which we don’t
is organized emotionally. Objects in a museum communicate, that we only employ pragmati-
are classified by the principle of identity; in cally. Objects of daily use have ceased to be
a cabinet of wonders, the arrangement is di- cult objects, and our activities have ceased
rected by the principle of analogy, governed by to be rituals.
what Roger Caillois calls “diagonal science.” Unfortunately, aside from happy excep-
A cabinet of wonders is my latest obsession. tions (such as Ambras castle), the fate of out-
For the last few years, I’ve been building one standing cabinets of wonders has not escaped
at my castle in the former granary, which I’ve the repression of civilization (regardless of
dedicated to this purpose. whether it was masked in any way): the pillag-
I’ve always admired the emperor Rudolf ing of Rudolf’s collection (first by Vienna, then
forum 104
Jan Švankmajer’s
Kunstkamera.
Photographs by Jan
Švankmajer.
forum 105
by the Swedes, and then with the remainder of Fangs and Bakots, and also by Czech folk
sold away by the Czech estates to get money shrines of the nineteenth century.
for mercenary soldiers). Breton’s collection Vetustissima mainly presents examples
was given away by his daughter and grandson of antique furniture, pieces made especially
at an auction. It’s significant that no official for this cabinet of wonders, and our personal
gallery or museum would buy this collection as ceramics.
a whole, despite its incalculable value. By the However, the classification of a cabinet of
way, as far as I know, all the more remarkable wonders can never be exact and complete, as
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century cabinets each of its themed areas permeates the others.
in Bohemia were similarly dispersed. Official
museums chose for their collections only the Notes
“more valuable” pieces, and the rest were sold 1. Translator’s note: While the Czech state be-
at auction or ended up in depositories. A similar gan a process of nationalization—including
thing happened to the last historical cabinet nationalization of the film industry—after the
of wonders in our territory, Hermína Srbová’s war, most confiscations of property occured
collection, which was donated “by compulsion” following the communist coup.
to the state after 1945.1 2. Editor’s note: Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a
The cabinet of wonders that we’re creating sixteenth-century Italian painter known for
retains in principle the traditional division of unusual portraits that replaced facial features
a classical Wunderkabinet. with fruits, vegetables, animals, and other
Naturalia represents my objects and col- objects in a fashion reminiscent of the whimsy
lages of “natural science,” in addition to se- that typifies later surrealist practices.
lected natural things (mainly shells, corals, and 3. Editor’s note: Jan Švankmajer’s wife, Eva
minerals), put together into Arcimboldesque Švankmajerová, passed away in 2005.
heads and busts.2 A set of “natural mandalas”
will be added here.
Exotica is represented by a collection of
African and Oceanian masks and fetishes.
My alchemic objects (and the reconstruc-
tion of an alchemist’s lab) stand as Esoterica
(mirabilia a mystica), with Eva’s cycle of paint-
ings “Mutus liber,” plus a cycle of my fetish
objects, and a collection of drawings done
through a medium.3
Arteficialia represents a “thematic” col-
lection on the Arcimboldesque principle that
gathers together paintings and drawings from
the eighteenth century to the present, plus a
collection of Czech Art Brut and contemporary
displays of surrealism in the visual arts.
So far, Scientica is represented by only
a few collage pages from the “Technology”
section of my Švankmajer Bilderlexikon and
by a set of graphics of masturbation machines.
But I also hope that “real” machines will be
added. Perhaps in time, the fantasy Militaria
will be here.
Primarily erotic-grotesque Gaudia appear
throughout the whole collection.
For now, Funeralia and horribilia are rep-
resented by a collection of small ancestral
sculptures from Africa, by reliquary figures

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Cabinets of Wonders: On Creating and Collecting

Author(s): Jan Švankmajer

Cabinets of Wonders II, even when it wasn’t fashionable, and he

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