Wunderkammer

A place where a collection of curiosities and rarities is exhibited

Origin: German, literally ‘wonder chamber’

The initial concept of Virtù evolved while co-ordinating the annual student Painting Department exhibition. This active collaboration interacts and responds to the Hunt Museum and has been instrumental in reanimating the collection and providing new interpretations of the museum in the 21st century.

Curating Virtù involved the placement of artworks from different generations side by side thus creating interesting overlaps and conversations, much like the Wunderkammer display methods of the Hunt Museum, but moving from the cabinets of curiosities and positioning Virtù in a contemporary context.

The show presents a gathering together of contemporary and historical artists from both International and Irish art. This confluence of artists and ideas examine a wide range of approaches, methods and mediums which include; painting, drawing, film and the archive. Themes underpinning investigations include the rise and decline of the city, the studio, landscape, portraiture, architecture, memory, abstraction and the object. The disparate elements present in Virtù expose and reveal uneven yet curious connections.

Our idea to bring drawings from different Irish collections: Irish Museum of Modern Art, University of Limerick, Limerick City Gallery of Art and the Hunt Museum was to examine the importance of drawing collections and how they can function today in new and engaging ways. The placement of drawings including; Alberto Giacommetti, Patrick Hall, David Godbold, and Elizabeth Magill engage notions of fluidity, fragmentation, mapping, directness, immediacy and open-endedness which are all facets that have informed the realization and context of Virtù.  

The coming together of different institutions, artists, curators, academics and collectors provides an opportunity to question and extend the relationships between the artist and the museum while presenting an experience of the dichotomies between the past, present and possible futures.

We hope this exhibition will offer the public the opportunity to experience and engage with an eclectic construction that communicates ideas of curiosity and diversity in the spirit of the Hunt family as they created their own collection to serve and educate the imaginations of today’s students and artists.

‘every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories’    Walter Benjamin

Alan Keane and Katrina Maguire, 2017

Lecturers, Fine Art, Painting

Limerick School of Art & Design