ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines two distinct models for the exhibition of works of art, one centered on what he shall call resonance and the other on wonder. The effect of resonance does not necessarily depend upon a collapse of the distinction between art and nonart; it can be achieved by awakening in the viewer a sense of the cultural and historically contingent construction of art objects. The wonder-cabinets of the Renaissance were at least as much about possession as display. The wonder derived not only from what could be seen but from the sense that the shelves and cases were filled with unseen wonders, all the prestigious property of the collector. The experience of wonder was not initially regarded as essentially or even primarily visual; reports of marvels had a force equal to the seeing of them. For both the poetics and politics of representation are most completely fulfilled in the experience of wonderful resonance and resonant wonder.
