Wes Anderson curates 'Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin' at Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

Wes Anderson, the acclaimed filmmaker, has curated the third installment of the 'In the Spotlight' series at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, following previous editions by artists Ed Ruscha and Edmund de Waal. The exhibition, titled 'Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin,' runs until April 28, 2019, and was conceived by Anderson and his partner Juman Malouf. Inspired by Andy Warhol's 1969 exhibition 'Raid the Icebox I' at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, the curators selected objects intuitively, ignoring historical-artistic classifications. The show is organized into seven distinct 'wonder rooms,' each a closed system that juxtaposes objects from different eras—such as a tiny Habsburg family tree, busts of emperors, and a theatrical costume by Erika Pluhar alongside Dyonisio Miseroni's 'Smaragdgefäß' from the Schatzkammer. The curators emphasize visual symmetry and aesthetic journey, with references to Anderson's films like 'Moonrise Kingdom' and 'The Grand Budapest Hotel.' The project was initiated by Jasper Sharp, curator at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, who found a catalog of Warhol's exhibition in a New York bookstore. Anderson recounts that an older museum curator initially failed to grasp the connections, but the team remains confident that even if the project fails art-historically, it will help advance art history through trial and error.