Welcome to "Kingdoms", a sample that is a giant chest full of wonders

If visiting the National Museum of Decorative Art is, in itself, a pleasant extemporaneous experience (entering a historicist mansion that was home to the vernacular oligarchy, the imposing Errázuriz Palace, with all its material power expressed spatially in flooring, boisseries, carpets, lights, furniture, curtains and pieces of all the arts), doing so to visit the exquisite Kingdoms of Cabinet Óseo exhibition is to attend a narrative fable that, like time, embroiders climates and states with its invisible threads.

The intervention is throbbing before entering, it is visible: behind the access staircase you receive La noche , a nymph sculpted in marble in the mid-19th century by Joseph Pollet , heritage of the house, which Marina Molinelli Wells and Celina Saubidet have transformed in dragonfly with a delicate pair of scaled wings, made of alpaca filigree.

Next, a subtle interpellation: "What pattern connects the crab to the lobster, the orchid to the primrose, and all this to me? And me to you?" Silvia Gurfein 's careful curatorial text opens with a quote from anthropologist and linguist Gregory Bateson . And he explains what has united the authors of this highly recommended sample-experience.

"Pause in fascination at the beauty of a plum pit, the labyrinthine circuits of a walnut or the slight bulge of some small sea lion bones. Observing spellbound the drawings of a cell in the microscope or the slow process of metamorphosis of a butterfly Contemplate the rhythmic beating of a heart The infinite love for the forms and processes of nature has united Celina Saubidet and Marina Molinelli Wells in a third entity that transcends them and that is much more than the sum of its parts: Bone Cabinet Both daughters of doctors, one an artist and sculptor, the other an industrial designer, enhance their vision and develop everything from small objects and jewelery to large-scale sculptures and installations", reveals Gurfein.

Thus, at this intersection where the building and its belongings impose themselves strongly and the creations of Molinelli Wells and Saubidet do so softly, a captivating climate of chiaroscuro will be played out throughout the exhibition: between science and fantasy, backgrounds and shapes , membranes and bodies, lights and shadows. This is not, perhaps, what is expected of a Cabinet or Room of Wonders, that format created by the European nobility and bourgeoisie to get excited in the admiration of exotic objects that came from the most remote places. The world then was much smaller, unknown. And it is there, precisely, where the seed of what later, with modernity, we would know as paper encyclopedias, and as museums in buildings, nests.

"Crossing and hybridizing worlds, cultures and kingdoms appears as one of the most synergistic strategies of contemporary times. Bringing opposites into dialogue, blending differences, mutating the pure, constitute modes of experimentation and production in current arts and design," says Martín Marcos . His observation applies to the show and, in a way, also to this new stage of revitalization of the MNAD.

The experience continues with a shadowy passage through the so-called Great Hall, the only space in the Errázuriz Palace that has double height, bordered by a circulation that highlights the glass and wood coffers of the ceiling, from which five Flemish chandeliers hang. However, they are hardly seen, the attention changes time: now it is the Playa de Crisálidas, where white bodies shine, whose fabric refers to soft membranes, like cellular structures and their shape to the hidden internal, which is not seen if It is not under a microscope or, perhaps, at the bottom of the sea.

Arranged on drops of soft brown and gray carpets, these snowy structures invite adults and children to enter and circulate them as in a square sandbox. Some adults are also encouraged to climb a couple of meters. Worked punctually from the chandeliers, the lighting by Arturo Peruzzotti plays an impeccable role throughout the tour.

" Reinos is a sample of a large part of the latest research by Molinelli Wells and Saubidet displayed in four spaces of the National Museum of Decorative Art (which functions as a perfect chest, a jewelry box that in turn is a great gem in itself) spun for that look that abstracts, poetizes and transfigures forms like someone trying to decipher a language that speaks to us in common and reconnects us with a whole", explains Silvia Gurfein . Meanwhile, the children of both artists go through and explain what they have participated in: the work of their mothers. Emma and Rubén, aged 11 and 9, do it the academic way: clad in an albiceleste shirt, they await the triumphant encore of Racing Club and accompany Molinelli's movements. Idem Juana and Cala, who wait for Saubidet between chrysalises.

With the assembly of their creations and inspirations Celina, sculptor, and Marina, industrial designer, also place us in the curiosity of those ages and -even in digital times that smooth out microscopic distances and reveal the inside of the outside-, recover the pleasure of that precise astonishment: to discover what is constitutive, that of nature that is repeated in all kingdoms.

Thus, with scientific emotion on, they enter the banquet hall of Don Matías Errázuriz and Doña Josefina de Alvear . In the same baroque dining room whose table allowed up to twenty-four guests, guarded by Alfred de Dreux 's hunting oil paintings and Chinese porcelain vases and lions in strict symmetry, a twelve-meter-long showcase box invites you to lean out and appreciate some two hundred minimal pieces : crabs, beetles, peanuts, leaves, starfish, teeth and teeth with roots, hearts, seeds and nutshells, arachnids... a madness of curiosity. Among the "real" pieces that have gone through an electrolysis bath to stay in time with copper, bronze or silver metallic skin, jewels slip in: the peanut ring, the heart charms, the silver stars.

At this stage of the journey, beautifully baptized "Memory Crystals", the genesis of the souvenir is explained: "We treasure memories of trips, of moments, of places. Tangible and precious but fragile and humble like dry leaves, corals, little bugs. Memorabilia of walks that keep the trail of emotions, thoughts and conversations. We can write about those memories or review photographs, but the objects collected and kept on such occasions are the ones that have the power to evoke with greater intensity those memories that seem to have been folded in them ", orients a text. In addition to the jewels on their invoice, the cabinet contains Celina and Marina's own objects, minimal treasures that explain without words what unites them.

Cabinet Óseo 's operation on these pieces has been to stop time and its inevitable disintegration through the electrolysis process. And, pay attention here, that you will not only be able to visit this wonderful exhibition but also get closer to its agenda of activities, among which there will be an Electrolysis Workshop.

In a state of nineteenth-century astonishment, with the figure of Charles Darwin and his Theory of Species creeping into the thoughts and fluttering comments of visitors to the MNAD, we went to the Fummoir or Tobacconist's Lounge. There await some impeccable showcases designed ad hoc by Leonardo Ceolín , in which at different heights from the point of view and with mirrors, the gallery of astonishments continues: a frog standing on tiptoe, which seems to come out of a children's poem by Edward Lear ; Goat horns, Pecan nuts, neat rows that suggest a morphological essay on peanuts... You will even find, impossible to decipher, an oval shape.

"It's a fly larva, which was made in a wound on my head and they took it out," instructs little Rubén, son of Marina Molinelli . It is that here, what is exposed intersperses finds and treasures of friends (which the authors requested to protect from time and return them to their owners converted into work) with the processes of manufacturing the jewels step by step: paste molds, passage to the wax , metal molds for copying... and so on at the "Heart of Wonders" station.

"For modern biology there are at least five kingdoms of the living and although civilization tries to forget it, humans are included in one of them: the animal. Seen through the microscope we look like a dragonfly or a linden leaf. Seen from his eyes (Cabinet's) we can bloom like a daisy, shed skin like a snake or twin with the gait of a snail", Gurfein instructs us again.

And he continues: "Cabinet is interested in what is not within the reach of the human eye in nature, not only in terms of its physical capacity, but also what for the considerations of everyday culture is insignificant or negligible, such as a peanut shell or a twig lost in the garden. It unhides it and gives it the character of an aesthetic object, turns it into a jewel, enlarges it into a sculpture or crystallizes it into eternal memory. It transmutes materials to make solid what is fluid and invisible and brings it into its new matter into visible space.

Imbued with that spirit that connects people through the treasure of their discoveries, explorations and putting wonder into action in order to share it, we move on to the next space: the Ballroom that has become Filigrana Forest.

"We carry beautiful drawings inside our fabrics. We are shaped by delicate designs, just like plants or porpoises. Cabinet Óseo takes these microscopic views, enlarges them and reworks them in alpaca, bronze and copper lace. Like a tremulous interior clothing, like exquisite stamps of identity shared with all kingdoms", explains a room text.

And if a while before Celina Saubidet explained in another room the effort involved in the process of these pieces, when seeing them, the pleasure and amazement are not taken for granted. From some neat two-meter tubular supports hang slightly separated from floating white plates. On one side hang, like giant embroidery, the filigree pieces soldered in tin. From the other, we see its projected shadow. They are expensive and close to a subtle, artisanal, design, artistic, laborious, precious process that is thanks to Cabinet Óseo .

* Kingdoms. Bone CabinetUntil May 12National Museum of Decorative ArtAv. del Libertador 1902 – CABA Tuesday to Sunday, from 12:30 to 7:00 p.m. Free admission

Schedule of activities

SATURDAY 4/13 3:30 PM

TALK WITH THE ARTISTS AND SILVIA GURFEIN

Conversations between jewels and sculptures, meeting of the artists with the public. It will take place in the main hall with the moderation of Silvia Gurfein

Limited quotas

SUNDAY 4/14 12:30 p.m.

YIN YOGA CLASS by Milu Granitto

In the hall of the chrysalises. yin yoga class

Limited quotas

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From my experience and as I propose it, the practice of yin yoga is a journey to the interior… of deep observation and listening to oneself. In this permanence that the practice proposes, we enter short meditative states, of connection, of tuning in with ourselves... gently, with love, with patience and always respecting ourselves.

Keeping your eyes closed so as not to be distracted by the outside world is a tool to travel deeper and thus be able to release from the depths.

CAOS MAGIC + EXPERIMENTOLOIZAGA

5:30 p.m. Live music in the hall of the chrysalises

SATURDAY 4/20 3:30 p.m.

Shifa Duo: Veronica Der-Meguerditchian and Javier Nahum

In the hall of the chrysalises.

Live music between the chrysalises: event with live musicians, cello and voice.

Shifa Duo shares since 2015 a different musical proposal. Bringing the listener closer to the heart of himself, promoting a state of receptivity consciousness, of that which is beyond the usual conceptions.

From the devotional music of different traditions such as sonorities in the form of songs or sound climates born from the moment, on this occasion, in resonance with Reinos, Dúo Shifa approaches sharing from a new perspective with those who are ready to embark on this sound journey of transformation, coming out of the chrysalis of the known to discover a new, vibrant world, full of new colors and textures.

SATURDAY 4/27 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Hand hygiene awareness campaign by the Hand Hygiene Brigade of the German Hospital. You will be taught how to wash your hands correctly and then the effectiveness of this procedure can be observed through a special box.

Projection of images of bacteria in the water.

SUNDAY 4/28 3:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Electrolysis, live sample of the copper electroforming process by R afael Luis Alvarez Meinvielle.

The electroforming technique consists of the metallization of parts and forms that do not conduct electricity, with their subsequent development in thickness.

That is to say that taking any object we manage to build a metallic piece, leaving a record of it.

On April 28 in the afternoon we will see the reasons for this magical technique, and we will perform the metallization of various pieces.

Invitation to the owners of the treasures to be photographed with their treasures.

Imaging of bacteria

SUNDAY, MAY 5, 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Within the framework of the WHO campaign "Save lives: clean your hands" the Hand Hygiene Brigade of the German Hospital will teach how to wash your hands correctly and then the effectiveness of this procedure will be observed through a special box.

Projection of images of bacteria in the water.

SATURDAY 11/5 5pm

Music set on vinyl, inspired by nature by DJ Topo Larocca

SUNDAY 12/5 5pm

A musical project by Miguel Castro, with Daniel Melero.

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