Wes Anderson presents box of ‘treasures’ from Viennese vaults
The “treasure chamber” at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum takes on a new meaning Tuesday thanks to an exhibition curated by American filmmaker Wes Anderson and his partner, illustrator and author Juman Malouf. The pair were given free rein to assemble pieces from the vast collections and archives of the museum, as well as some of its partner institutions, in order to put together the six-month show, entitled “Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures”.
The opening of the exhibition on Monday evening was attended by some of Anderson’s perennial collaborators such as actors Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton. Tongue firmly in cheek, 49-year-old Anderson gave a short speech describing the process of putting the exhibition together with Malouf, 43, as “the culmination of several years of patient, frustrating negotiation, bitter, angry debate, sometimes completely irrational confrontation and often Machiavellian duplicity and deception.” “Perhaps I am as guilty as she is-but I doubt it,” he added.
Eccentric count
Even before they started working on the project in early 2015, Anderson and Malouf had been frequent visitors to the museum, which boasts one of Europe’s most extensive collections of fine art. However, anyone expecting a traditionally didactic museum experience, centered around a historical theme for example, will be disappointed.
With labels and explanations cast aside, the visitor has the impression of stumbling into an intimate and sometimes surreal space, crammed with objects which evoke the palette and symmetry that Anderson fans will recall from films such as The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom. “It feels like the collecting chamber of an eccentric count, somewhere in the Czechoslovakian countryside hundreds of years ago,” Jasper Sharp, the museum’s curator for Modern and Contemporary Art, said. —AFP