Don't fret, your eyes are not going half-fuzzy: this is the next innovative display idea from the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg. In a special exhibition on provenance (itself very nicely done, with all the right questions and answers about provenance written into the wall and object texts), this case stood out for several reasons. First of all, the construction-worker orange color under the silver objects. Like the bright purple in the Cabinet of Curiosities display or the cerulean blue in the Greek galleries, I'm not convinced that the color enhances the objects; but it does a fabulous job of acting like a tractor beam to reel in the viewer. Bright! Shiny! Must get closer!
The second feature that struck me is the use of stickers on the glass walls of the case. As in the bubble effect in the Egyptian gallery, here too it seems that vinyl stickers were smoothed onto the panes in order to direct the eye in certain ways. Here the stickers are more subtle than the circular cut-outs: they are clear and just barely textured so as to give the glass a frosted appearance. Cut into large triangles and laid at irregular angles, they create an almost hallucinatory effect as you look into the case. The photo below shows how the stickers echo the geometric gray printed background on the back and base of the case, while the upper photo illustrates the sometimes dizzying effect of looking at an object half-obscured by fog. Yet I loved it, despite feeling vaguely disoriented. As an optical illusion of sorts, it asks the viewer to look closely to figure out just what she's seeing; and in so doing, it gets her to stay put, scrutinize, change viewpoint, look again. That is a great achievement. And in my experience, even if my attention was first focused on the case, it certainly shifted to the objects.
The second feature that struck me is the use of stickers on the glass walls of the case. As in the bubble effect in the Egyptian gallery, here too it seems that vinyl stickers were smoothed onto the panes in order to direct the eye in certain ways. Here the stickers are more subtle than the circular cut-outs: they are clear and just barely textured so as to give the glass a frosted appearance. Cut into large triangles and laid at irregular angles, they create an almost hallucinatory effect as you look into the case. The photo below shows how the stickers echo the geometric gray printed background on the back and base of the case, while the upper photo illustrates the sometimes dizzying effect of looking at an object half-obscured by fog. Yet I loved it, despite feeling vaguely disoriented. As an optical illusion of sorts, it asks the viewer to look closely to figure out just what she's seeing; and in so doing, it gets her to stay put, scrutinize, change viewpoint, look again. That is a great achievement. And in my experience, even if my attention was first focused on the case, it certainly shifted to the objects.
Partially fogged glass, Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg
Partially fogged glass, Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg
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