The city, the novel and the museum as spaces of memory “The museum of innocence” by Orhan Pamuk

Abstract

Stvaralački projekat turskog književnika Orhana Pamuka koji otelovljuje sa jedne strane roman, a sa druge strane muzej, odnosno trodimenzionalnu predstavu romana postavljenu u istanbulskoj staroj građanskoj kući u kojoj je izložena opsežna kolekcija predmeta svakodnevice koje pisac godinama sakuplja – tumačićemo u ovom radu kroz prizmu stvaranja svojevrsnog kabineta čudesa – umetničkog dela koje se oslanja na istoriju i preispitivanje muzejske misli s jedne strane, te kolekcioniranje kao umetničku praksu s druge strane. Oslanjajući se na muzeo-loške teorije posvećene kolekcioniranju i na prepoznavanje reminiscencija kabineta čudesa kao preteče modernoj muzejskoj instituciji u umetničkom izrazu modernih i savremenih umetnika, ovo Pamukovo delo tumačićemo kao nastavak već ustaljene savremene umetničko-sakupljačke prakse koja teži povratku mikroistorijama, odnosno naglašavanju važnosti individualnih sećanja kao i kritici instrumentalizovanih muzejskih institucija.

Basing research on the cultural memory studies on one hand and the history of modern art and museum criticism on the other, in this paper we show how the concepts characteristic for the work of modern and contemporary visual artists - collectors, guardians of intimate histories, could be recognized in Orhan Pamuk’s “The Museum of Innocence”. We interpret this Pamuk’s creative project as the embodiment of a particular Cabinet of Wonders of today. While writing the novel, Pamuk becomes a chronicler of Istanbul in the 1970s, and he linkes his memories to imaginary characters, creating a love story. At the same time, he is a kind of flaner - a wanderer through urban landscapes who collects everyday objects, tying personal memories to them. Finally, the writer’s fiction gets a real, three-dimensional space - a museum which actually presents a visual artwork, a kind of spatial installation in which Pamuk pays homage to some modern artists. Through different statements and acompaning publications, he masterly explains already exhisting concerns on the relationship between art and museum world present in contemporary artistic practice and museum and art theory. Therefore, through his entire project which lasted for many years, Orhan Pamuk strives to expand the personal microcosm intertwined with intimate stories and small, innocent objects that embody them. This approach, we show, is in line with the return of the object in contemporary art and the increasing creation of works made out of collections of everyday objects. These installations take over concepts and models of the Cabinet of Wonders, the forerunner of the modern museum. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to point out how the “The Museum of Innocence” can be interpreted through the well-known concepts and ideas of artists as preservers of individual memories, but also critics of the museum institution.