Through poetry, illustration, and dynamic construction, Angela Lorenz’s artist book explores the peculiar history of the Renaissance-era Cabinet of Curiosity. Categorized and arranged collections of natural, anthropological, geological, historic, and religious items, cabinets of curiosities were the earliest versions of museums in Europe. Often conflating myth and theology with science and specimen in the collections, the halls typically included objects related to beasts such as the unicorn.
View Artist’s research sketch from The Theater of Nature or Curiosity Filled the Cabinet in the Brown Digital Repository
Angela Lorenz
Bologna, Italy: Novelties of Purpose, a division of Angela Lorenz Artists Books, 1999
Special Collections, Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design