© KHM-Museumsverband – Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf

The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna may be a treasure trove of precious artworks and artefacts from bygone eras, but it has found a clever to connect with contemporary culture and a young demographic. Six years ago it launched a new series of exhibitions for which remarkable creatives are invited to present their own personal selections of objects drawn from the museum’s very own historical collections. Mind you, the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s collections encompass more than four million objects, and span a period of five thousand years. Following the picks of painter Ed Ruscha and ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal, it’s now cult American filmmaker Wes Anderson and Lebanese writer and illustrator Juman Malouf who step into the limelight as curators. In the aforementioned exhibition series’ third instalment, entitled Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures, the duo present a more than 400 objects they’ve selected from the vast collections, all with the help from the museum staff. The picks include Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, Old Master paintings, selections from the Kunstkammer and the Imperial Treasury, items from the Imperial Armoury, Coin Collection, and Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, as well as pieces from the Theatermuseum, the Weltmuseum, the Imperial Carriage Museum, and Ambras Castle in Innsbruck (on through Apr 28).

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Maria Theresien Platz (Innere Stadt)
1010 Vienna
Telephone: +43 1 525240
Tue-Sun 10-6

© KHM-Museumsverband – Exhibition settings