Herr der Dinge

Masters of Things (Herr der Dinge)

Of all the motives that move people in their innermost being and make them act, there is hardly one that does not have its origin in collecting. By accumulating and presenting things of the most varied kinds, people gain orientation and not only live out their passion, but also their vanity and their drive for power.

Objects have always been selected and accumulated, whether to use or purely observe, and information has always been collected so that it can be shared or facilitate decision-making. But it is precisely in an age when information is gathered to increase capital that Caroline Heinecke is spurred on to depart from this trend and turn her attention to collections that seek to represent the supposedly useless.

Regine von Chossy from Munich, for example, collects hair and exhibits it in her own hair museum with dated and signed hair donations. The photographer Karl-Ludwig Lange collects bricks because the stamps on them reveal the local history of his surroundings. The preparator Navena Widulin from Berlin collects gallstones, thus continuing a tradition of the Berlin Medical History Museum of the Charité.
It is almost as if the objects in the collections had been collected under the gaze of their masters, as if they were in fact subjects. For if one looks at the pictures through the collector’s eyes and with their innocence, what has just been declared nonsensical, strange, worthless, even disgusting or foolish suddenly becomes clear, familiar, beautiful and fascinating.