Col·loquis de la SCHCT (2018–2019)

Different waxes, different gazes: On the aesthetics of ceroplastics

Pietro Conte

(Senior Assistant Professor of Aesthetics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

Dijous, 21 de febrer de 2019 a les 19.00 hores

Lloc : Sala Pi i Sunyer, IEC, Carrer del Carme, 47. Barcelona

Tercera sessió d’aquesta sisena edició del cicle de col·loquis dedicats a reflexionar sobre el potencial explicatiu de la cultura material de la ciència, així com les condicions i contextos de les exhibicions d’objectes i materials científics.

Some very different kinds of objects often fall under the same label of “anatomical wax modelling” simply because 1) they are actually made of wax and 2) they are shaped, modelled, or retouched by an artist or artisan. Yet when focusing not only on what these objects concretely are, but also on how they are perceived and experienced, irreconcilable differences emerge.

In my talk I will particularly focus on the collection of wax heads preserved at the recently reopened Cesare Lombroso’s Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin, considering them as an ambiguous middle-way between two different types of wax objects: the so-called “anatomical Venuses” (prompting what I would define as an “aesthetic-typifying” gaze) and the moulages (requiring on the contrary a “scientific-individualizing” gaze).

Organitza: Alfons Zarzoso (Museu d’Història de la Medicina de Catalunya) i José Pardo-Tomás (CSIC, Institució Milà i Fontanals).