News / 01 January, 2020
Whims
Natural Museum of Modern Art
Dear visitor,
Welcome to the Whims Exhibit. Here you will find the coral gardens top designs, the best images of what Nature is able to give us in terms of textures, patterns and colors. Let’s submerge in the shallow and well lit waters where corals live, and start the tour. Close your eyes, inspire once, put your underwater mask on, and then open your eyes. Enjoy, you are now in the coral reef!
First room | The jewelry whims
Pearl shaped polyp mantles, smooth luxurious designs, and inspiring, charming, silky rounded surfaces, moving tentacles….it’s a joy to the eye. Capricious ridges and valleys are the home of polyps, big cities in miniature, built for these soft, delicate animals which spread their tentacles to the open water, full of plankton.
Second room | The hall of tricks
While admiring the magnificent coral scenes, we feel surrounded by amazing creatures. The reef inhabitants also participate in the performance. Tropical fishes wear bright colored liveries, with elegant patterns and designs. While they shelter in the coral reef we are admiring the strategy of life. Masters in the art of trick and defense, fishes have disruptive, cryptic and mimic compositions, full of lines and motifs, with the purpose of confusing predators. They simulate eyes on the opposite site of the real eyes and also camouflage the individual silhouette on the shape of the group.
Third room | Sea bed whims
Here we are, admiring textures and motifs from marine invertebrates on the sea bed. They are strange living beings….
Look at this enormous one! The giant clam opens its colored mantle to our eyes. Look inside, it is soft, full of colors….it is the home of microscopic algae that give their colors to the animal. Be quiet, it is very sensitive and if you move too fast it will close. Did you know there are many legends about these big animals?….they are man eaters…so be quiet!
Have a look to the sea cucumbers creeping on the seafloor. These leathery skins full of bumps and colored motifs….some shrimps live and hide over these surfaces. These animals have the ability of loosen and tightening their body wall at will.
Definitely their skin design is a master work of art and engineering.
