You might consider an art museum with 500 rooms and 20 storeys as not very small, but if you know that a room measures 57 by 48 mm (2.2 by 1.9 inch) and is 43 mm (1.7 inch) high this might alter your perception. The levels are in fact drawers and the museum itself forms part of a museum.
The Museum of Drawers was invented by artist Herbert Distel in 1970; in the years 1970 to 1977, the leading artists of the period filled one room each with an artwork specially conceived for the miniature museum. The museum, by dint of this extensive collaboration, is the joint expression of 502 artists; 500 filled the rooms, Distel invented the building and sculptor Ed Kienholz created its base. Distel’s building is in fact a converted tallboy or chest of drawers specifically for thread storage used in a shop for sewing materials.
Among the 500 artists in the rooms you are able to find Robert Ballagh, Joseph Beuys, Christo, Ken Friedman, H.R. Giger, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miro, Meret Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Cy Twombly, Victor Vasarely, and Andy Warhol. The list, obviously, is far from complete.
The museum might be the most complete collection of the artists famous in the 70s of the last century. If you care to see who else is among these notables and what they contributed, the Museum of Drawers (like any self-respecting museum these days) has its own homepage and offers pictures of all the artwork contained within allowing you a virtual visit no matter where you are.
Once finished, Herbert Distel donated the completed artwork to the Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich’s museum of art, where it is now exhibited again until September. The curators have compiled a video documentary for the visitors as well as a virtual walk-through by touch screen. The small museum has been on tour around the world ever since its inception, and that combined with natural deterioration made the total overhaul a necessity.
Predecessors to the Museum of Drawers may be found in the collections of curios so beloved by nobles and royals since the Renaissance. In such a collection you might find anything from a Roman bust to the pickled remains of a two-headed turtle or, for that matter, a golden letter from the King of Burma to King George II. These curio cabinets lived on into Edwardian times and later with the display cabinets beloved by our grandparents.
Further reading
Zurich is More Than Banks
Lost and Found: Britannic's Organ
Museum City: Basel
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