Exhibition Realities as World Pictures

Abstract

The present contribution is devoted to the question of the relation between historical and contemporary museum exhibitions and the realities to which they refer, and the understanding and visible expression of this relation: the notion of a microscopic assurance of the macrocosm in the early chambers of art and wonders, the modern idea of a representable and surveyable reality in the clarity provided by labels of spacious museum halls, doubt in the possibility of comprehensive documentation and reproduction and the consequences of this insight up to the present. Particular attention is paid to the correspondence between the models of exhibiting outlined in series and the changing systems of thought as well as the connection between (further) developing presentation concepts and an understanding of science and the museum as well as the self-conception of the responsible collectors, researchers and custodians in the course of the last centuries.