Vienna Kunsthistorische Museum goes twee with Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf curation

Celebrity curations are nothing new for the Kunsthistorisches Museum. But many of the 400 objects on display in "Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin," curated by director Wes Anderson (center) and illustrator and designer Juman Malouf (l), can be seen for the first time in the museum. Working with museum director Sabine Haag (r), the pair selected objects from 14 collections, including the Old Masters.

As the title object, The Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin carries quite a bit of weight in the exhibition despite its small size. Putting it front and center seems to fit the Anderson aesthetic, where attention is paid to even the most minute details.

Drawing from 14 different collections, including the Coin Collection and the Imperial Armoury, the curators selected items that date across millennia. Much attention was paid, then, on how to best display the objects as the director and illustrator found relationships between seemingly unrelated objects. In displaying them side-by-side, they connected pieces that crossed genres and centuries.

The groupings of the objects are anything but standard. "Some of the links are more immediately apparent than others," writes Anderson. "We situate the 17th-century emerald vessel in a confined space opposite the bright green costume from a 1978 production of Hedda Gabler in order to call attention to the molecular similarities between hexagonal crystal and Shantung silk."

"True: one of the Kunsthistorisches Museum's most senior curators [...] at first failed to detect some of the, we thought, more blatant connections; and, even after we pointed most of them out, still questions their curatorial validity in, arguably, all instances," wrote Anderson. "Our hope, however, is we will shed some light into corners that had previously been too dim for comfortable viewing."

Juman Malouf works as an author, illustrator, costume and set designer; her eye for finding beauty in the everyday can be seen throughout the exhibition. As part of the curation, Malouf created pencil sketches of several objects, including these sculptures of Adam and Eve.

Inspired by the show "Raid the Icebox I with Andy Warhol" from 1969-70, the project responds to the questions: "What would happen if some important contemporary artist were to choose an exhibition from the reserves? If the artist who selected the materials were strong enough, would he impose his personality on the objects? And If he were famous enough, would it not oblige the curious to look?"

"We place the painting of a seven-year-old falconer (Emperor Charles V) next to the portrait of a four-year-old dog owner (Emperor Ferdinand II) in order to emphasize the evolution of natural gesso," wrote Anderson, pointing out that he hopes to influence the study of art for future generations through these unconventional groupings.