Imperial taxonomies and the 'magic circle'

"Thus there is in the life of a collector a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order. Naturally his existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship to ownership...also, to a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value- that is, their usefulness, but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate. The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock, of his property."

Walter Benjamin p.13

"Only in extinction is the collector comprehended."

Hegel p.15

qtd. in Kiendl, Anthony. "Toward a New Understanding of Collecting." in Obsessions, Compulsions, Collections