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| The central city of Vienna
is a city of display; historically in its museums and contemporarily in its commercial
shops. The museum district, where we see clocks, books, art, jewelry, crystal,
guns, china, seamlessly leads into the shopping district, where we see clocks,
books, art, jewelry, crystal, guns, and china. This clean transition, from representation
of the historical object to the objects of mass consumption creates a symbiotic
relationship which plays on the history of the making of an object, from artisan
to mass production which is relative to that of ownership, from private to public
and public to private.
The secret purveyor of authority, of worth, and of value in this context is that of glass. Glass is that physical barrier creating a space in which we play out our psychological desires. As museum visitors we often observe our subjects through glass. The more valuable or fragile the object the more determined and prescribed the display. This is not unlike the displays found in the shopping district. In fact, one might suggest there exists an unsuspecting aura of display, from shop to museum and museum to shop, creating a symbiosis exemplified by the ubiquitous display case found in each. This "aura of display" and its direct relationship to private/public notions of ownership is the point of departure for my discussion. The meaning inherent in the display case itself is central. But my project also discusses the conditions which surround it. Though I have used the display case in previous works, more as an object, Vienna provided me with the unique opportunity to extend this investigation into a broader social parameter. Particularly, because of this arena of representation, notions of public/private collections, mass production, marketing, and consumer participation are closely related here, existing side by side. These relationships are well exemplified by public collections of historic, formerly private, aristocratic objects and architecture. This accounts for my interest in the Biedermeier period when this historically significant shift began to occur. The introduction of the straw, a lowly material, forces the museum display case to become a "dumb" object, unable to speak through its normal operative of subtle seduction and psychological separation. Behind the glass, the straw desperately seeks value through its golden, yet unsatisfying, color. Formally seductive as an object in the space, yet repelling now due to its pathetically stuffed condition, I ask the viewer to observe it, the display case, for what it is. By juxtaposing the publicly owned museum case to those of commercial shops I extend the discussion into a broader social arena. Ultimately, Stuffed critiques the conditions inherent in shopping, relating them to the experience of museums with their artifacts, their displays and their history. Mel Ziegler |