Cabinet de Curiosité

1989

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

Kuramata stated that his ideal was to see objects floating in air. Named for the Wunderkammern owned by Renaissance princes that displayed natural and man-made curiosities, Cabinet de Curiosité offers the magical impression of suspending its contents in midair. Kuramata explored the phenomenological effects of acrylic—light and lightness, invisibility and reflectivity, weight and weightlessness—and the material has become the poetic signature of his work. He used the term neiro, or "sound-color," to describe the synesthetic effect acrylic has in both its physical presence and the spectral color-shadows it casts as light passes through it.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Cabinet de Curiosité
Artist: Shiro Kuramata (Japanese, 1934–1991)
Date: 1989
Medium: Colored perspex acrylic
Classification: Plastic
Credit Line: Courtesy of Friedman Benda, New York
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art