DIE WUNDERKINDER
Treasure Boxes (Originally Installed in WunderKabinett 2 and 3)
Huon Pine, Anodized Aluminium.
A series, or set, of small, lidded containers, Die Wunderkinder is designed to fit within the square grid of the centaur form in Das Wunderkabinett 2 and 3. It was first installed in the cabinets in an exhibition titled Australian Decorative Arts Survey 2000, at Lauraine Diggings Fine Art in Melbourne.
In the geometry of the installation, exactly ten of them could fit within one of the cabinets. They give the impression when installed, of being soldiers or attendants, patiently and mutely being transported to their designated roles in some mythic fable. Again, the theme to which Lueckenhausen often returns, the good/bad, protect/attack duality, inserts itself into the narrative, creating a tension that is not entirely mitigated by the marionette-like cuteness of Die Wunderkinder. It might, in fact, be that very massed cuteness that is unnerving. The dark side of that duality draws on long threads of undercurrent myth, such as that of Pandora opening a forbidden container and releasing the spites to unleash sin and suffering on the world.
They also work as somewhat more benign individual pieces, which is exactly what they currently are, installed in several houses in two countries. The geometry works as well within each work as it does locating the work into the grid of the cabinet. Individually they recall the minor hearth god imagery of the Teraph, the sinister side to their sweetness less evident when alone.
The title is a play on words. Wunderkind is a German word for a prodigy or a child genius. The word also allows for the image of the Child of Wonder as in born of, or for, wonder. On yet another level, having been designed to be installed in the Wunderkabinett 2 and 3 cabinets, they are the conceptual children of those works and exist within the family of all of the works, which extend from Lueckenhausens research into the Wunderkammer.
