Through the lens of the glass cabinet: entering the material realm of museum objects

Abstract

This article discusses questions of spatial configuration and display design in museums, and how this affects the way museum objects are perceived. Based on an in-depth analysis of the Glass Cabinet at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, Denmark, the article explores how the glass items on display are seen not as singular objects, with a curated (hi)story to tell, but more as a collected mass of disparate glass objects with a material reality of their own. When looking at these objects, the spectator is placed within a large glass enclosure which protects the objects on display from the curious hands of museum visitors. However, this glass ‘vitrine’ also has the effect of putting the museum visitor on display, thereby challenging conventional subject-object relations within museums. In order to discuss the particular subversive ways in which the Glass Cabinet presents its objects, the article will partly draw on museological research on object collections and museum display, and partly on current thinking within the fields of object-oriented ontology and new materialism, where a de-centering of humans is proposed and the material realm of objects is emphasized. By speculating about the obscure life of objects within the Glass Cabinet, and the effects this might have upon the visual operations at play, this article will reflect on – and challenge – the ways in which we display and look at objects within museums today.

Keywords:

• museum display
• exhibition design
• museum collection
• material presence
• Rosenborg Castle
• Glass Cabinet

Acknowledgements

I gratefully thank Axel Harms and Nicholas Thomas Lee for inspiring conversations and helpful comments during the formulation of this article. I also wish to thank Peter Kristiansen for providing drawing material from The Royal Danish Collection’s archive.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For comprehensive studies into Kunstkammers and Cabinets of Curiosities, see MacGregor (2007) and Impey and MacGregor (2017).

2 When I speak of presence, I use the term in a similar way as literary theorist Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. Gumbrecht criticizes the overt focus on meaning, which has been cultivated by interpretative quests in the humanities, and instead emphasizes the importance of presence effects – that is, the way things can be present to us in a bodily and sensory manner; as moments of intensity (2004). For further thoughts about presence in museums, see also Bencard (2014), Bjerregaard (2015), and Madsen (2019).

3 For further thoughts on object-oriented museum practice see Bencard (2020).

4 For further thoughts on working with spatial-material compositions in museum display design see Pilegaard (2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ane Pilegaard

Ane Pilegaard is assistant professor at the Royal Danish Academy - Architecture, Design, Conservation, Institute of Architecture and Design, in Copenhagen. She teaches on the Spatial Design MA program and conducts research on museum architecture and exhibition design. Ane completed her PhD project on museum exhibition design at Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen. Previously, she worked in the field of art exhibition. Email: [email protected]