At the Prada Foundation, the exhibition curated by Wes Anderson on the reasons for collecting

The Spitzmaus Sarcophagus and Other Treasures is an exhibition project conceived by Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf. Organized in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the exhibition brings together 538 artworks and objects selected by film director Wes Anderson(Houston, 1969) and illustrator, designer, and writer Juman Malouf(Beirut, 1975) and from 12 collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and 11 departments of the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna at the Fondazione Prada in Milan from Sept. 20, 2019 to Jan. 13, 2020. The title of the exhibition pays homage to one of the exhibits, the Spitzmaus Sarcophagus, an Egyptian wooden box containing the mummy of a shrew from the 4th century BCE.

The exhibition is a reflection on the motivations that drive the act of collecting and the ways in which a collection is kept, presented and experienced. Looking to the past and inspired by the model of the Wunderkammer, The Spitzmaus Sarcophagus and Other Treasures challenges the traditional canons that define museum institutions, proposing new relationships between them and their collections, between professional figures and museum audiences. The choice of works, made following a nonacademic and interdisciplinary approach, demonstrates not only Anderson and Malouf’s in-depth knowledge of the two museums, but also testifies to unexpected resonances and correspondences between the collected works and the creative universes of the two artists.

The exhibition consists of groups of works: from green-colored objects to portraits of children, from miniatures to time-measuring instruments, from boxes to wooden objects, from portraits of nobles and ordinary people to natural subjects such as the garden, meteorites and animals presented as scientific findings or as artistic representations.

Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures was presented at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna between November 2018 and April 2019. The exhibition in Milan represents a second version of it, more extensive in terms of exhibition area and number of selected works. The original layout with its path of rooms and showcases, conceived by the two curating artists with Itai Margula(Margula Architects) as a treasure chest with its treasures, is transported to the spaces of the Fondazione Prada as a ready-made. The exhibition expands into the ground floor of the Podium to create an environment inspired by the Italian garden tradition with the presence of elements that evoke hedges and allegorical pavilions typical of the Renaissance park.

The project is complemented by an artist’s book published by Fondazione Prada. It is presented as a container that includes drawings, reproductions, and various materials and, citing Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte en-valise as a model, takes up the idea of the portable museum and personal collection.

For all information you can visit the official website of the Prada Foundation.

Pictured: View of the exhibition Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Sarcophagus of a shrew c. 4th cent. BCE painted wood 21.9 x 11.6 x 11.4 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection. Ph. credit: Jeremias Morandell

At the Prada Foundation, the exhibition curated by Wes Anderson on the reasons for collecting

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