CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
Unique Bruegel exhibition
To mark the 450th anniversary of the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna is showing the world's first major monographic exhibition on the work of this exceptional artist.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a much sought-after artists even during his lifetime, which is why his works achieved unusually high prices at the time. On the occasion of the 450th anniversary of his death, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna dedicates a special exhibition to the most important Flemish painter of the 16th century. It is the world's first major monographic show on his work. Only just over forty paintings and sixty prints by the master remain in existence today. With 12 panel paintings, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna owns the world's biggest collection of Bruegel paintings. That is also mostly because the Habsburgs prized the quality and originality of Bruegel's imagery as early as the 16th century and went to the effort of acquiring famous, prestigious works by the artist.
With around 90 of his works, the exhibition in Vienna is the first to present an overview of the complete oeuvre of Pieter Bruegel the Elder: With almost 30 paintings (three quarters of the preserved painted œuvre) and half of the preserved drawings and prints, the show offers an opportunity of the century to dive into the artist's complex pictorial world, to comprehend his stylistic development and creative process, as well as to get to know his working methods, his pictorial wit and his unique narrative talent. Among the highlights to be seen in the exhibition are, for example, the Triumph of Death from the Prado in Madrid and the Tower of Babel from the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. To date, the vast majority of the fragile wooden panels have never been loaned for exhibition purposes.
The work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who revolutionized landscape and genre painting, still evokes diverse and controversial interpretations. The richness of his imagery and his astute talent for observing people still exert a special fascination on viewers today. The exhibition focuses on the beginnings of Bruegel's careers as a drawer and graphic artist as well as on his innovations in the field of landscape painting. Another section of the show is given over to his religious works, with a wealth of masterpieces such as a "The Triumph of Death" and "Dulle Griet", which has been specially restored for the exhibition.
Wes Anderson and the Mouse Coffin
What happens when the multi-award winning US filmmaker Wes Anderson and his partner Juman Malouf curate an exhibition in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna? - Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures!
Cult director Wes Anderson ("The Grand Budapest Hotel", "The Darjeeling Limited", "The Royal Tenenbaums") loves traveling through Europe by train. And has a passion for old things. So he gladly accepted the invitation of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna(KHM) to browse its collection for a unique show together with his partner, costume designer and author Juman Malouf. For two whole years, both of them battled their way through more than four million paintings, art objects and works in the museum's storerooms and selected their favorites. The result is an exhibition that is slightly different from what can normally be seen at the KHM.
The show "Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and other Treasures" presents over 400 unusual objects, many of which are being exhibited for the first time. In addition to the shrew coffin that gives the exhibition its title, these include ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, paintings by old masters, a selection of objects from the Kunstkammer and Schatzkammer, the Theater Museum and Ambras Castle near Innsbruck. In any case, the coming together and arrangement of these treasures gives a hint of the unbelievable abundance and density, history and complexity of the KHM's collections.
650 years of the Austrian National Library
The "Gründungscodex" (founding codex) of the Imperial Court Library dates to the year 1368. Now the Austrian National Library, it celebrates its 650th birthday in 2018.
The Habsburg Archduke Albrecht III (1349/50-1395) commissioned the "Evangeliar des Johannes von Troppau", which was completed in 1368. Written entirely in gold, decorated with lavish imagery and enclosed in a magnificent binding, it is one of the most valuable objects held by today's Austrian National Library. The Evangeliar, a manuscript that gathers together all four gospels of the New Testament, represents the beginning of the Habsburg book collections and thus the founding of the Court Library. It is just one of the highlights of the anniversary exhibition "Treasury of Knowledge". Also on display are further magnificent manuscripts and valuable early prints, which are representative of European book and intellectual history; moreover, there are precious musical scores, maps, manuscripts, photos and graphics from all of the library's collections, which begin over 3,000 years ago in the Egypt of the Pharaohs.
The anniversary exhibition is accompanied by the event series "Object of the Month": Twelve presentations by in-house experts focus on valuables that are only very rarely seen for conservation reasons. The show takes place in the Grand Hall of the Austrian National Library. Built in the 18th century, it extends over a length of 80 and a height of 20 meters. This Baroque jewel houses more than 200,000 volumes as well as an exhibit of four magnificent Venetian globes with a diameter of more than a meter.
