Dear friends of Museum Montanelli,
Our current exhibition “ Professor Beneš’ Cabinet of Mysteries“ has already been installed in September 2020 and is awaiting you. In this exhibition the lifelong entomological collection of the world-renowned neurosurgeon, Professor Vladimír Beneš, will be welcoming you in a dialogue with works of art from the Museum Montanelli collection.
Curator Dadja Altenburg Kohl conceived her installation as an idiosyncratic wunderkabinet in which she links the realm of the microcosm with contemporary art in unexpected contexts along with cult objects concerning life, death and also with documentation from pragmatic medicine.
What connects a collection of beetles, art, ritual symbols and the human anatomy? Perhaps simple beauty, maybe the desire for knowledge, that has accompanied the human race since time immemorial. All depends on the viewing angle. Some people are frightened by the symbolism of the skull, but actually it is the protective shell shielding our brain in the same way that the elytra or wing-casings are the armour for the fragile organism of an insect.
Thus, this exhibition connects the long-term, conceptual-authorial tendencies of Dadja Altenburg Kohl’s exhibitions, in which the worlds of art, science, politics, religion and philosophy co-exist together. This is certainly one of the reasons why Museum Montanelli has been ranked among the most interesting of the European cultural institutions of its kind.
In “ Professor Beneš’ Cabinet of Mysteries“ the curator uncovers once again the unexpected connections between apparently unrelated disciplines, over which shines the peculiar planet which is the motor of our being, that is the human brain. The dialogue between the doctor, the entomologist Professor Beneš, and the curator, the doctor Professor Altenburg Kohl, has shifted the exhibition onto an existential level in which all gives its apparent logic, provided, however, „we do not let into us“ the secrets which extend beyond us at the exhibition.
We can assure you, dear viewers and friends of Museum Montanelli, that this exhibition is only waiting for a safe moment so we can once again invite you into our premises in Nerudova Street. We wish you a peaceful Advent and remember that curiosity is the gate to the secrets, perhaps even at Museum Montanelli.
We look forward to seeing you again in 2021 at „The Secret Cabinet of Professor Beneš“ exhibition.
Yours,
The MuMo team
