Wes Anderson, famed advocate of symmetry, pastel colours and whimsy, is curating an exhibition at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, alongside writer and designer Juman Malouf. Frieze reports that the pair will be selecting objects from the museum’s “extensive collection of musical instruments, armour and weapons, Greco-Roman antiquities, as well as imperial carriages and sleighs from the Wagenburg museum”. If there’s a more Wes Anderson sentence than that, we don’t know what it is. Except maybe this one from Fantastic Mr Fox: “Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I’m saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I? And how can a fox ever be happy without, you’ll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?”
Poetic existential quandaries aside, we’re left with another question: what exactly are Wes and Juman going to pick? In 2012, the museum got American artist Ed Ruscha to choose a selection of their pieces to exhibit: he opted for a taxidermied fish and dead ladybirds. In 2016, Edmund de Waal conducted an “exploration of shadows”, which included gold-encrusted moving turtles.
Unfortunately we have to wait until 11 September to feast our eyes on whatever visual delights Wes opts for. So, to bide our time, we brainstormed a couple of things that we hope pop up.
The weapon
The museum says they show weapons, so we anticipate Wes will choose a Glock like the one Bill Murray thrust on his loyal intern Owen Wilson in The Life Aquatic. Or the BB gun from The Royal Tenenbaums. Or no guns at all.
The armour
A selection of (fake) furs of the same calibre as Margot Tenenbaum. A (fake) fur will protect one from many a precarious situation: unanticipated February snowbombs, a dicey outfit, PETA protesters.
The sleigh
Santa Claus’s actual sleigh. He is, apparently, a huge fan, and has modelled the entire North Pole on The Grand Budapest Hotel. (On the film’s release in 2014, he traded his centuries-old red colour palette for a more modern millennial pink).
The dress code
All adults have to dress like children and all children have to dress like adults. Those are the rules.
The instrument
A Balalaika: a Russian string instrument that Wes’s music supervisor used in The Grand Budapest Hotel soundtrack. Here is a video of someone playing the Mario Cart theme tune on it:
The colour scheme
Pastels on pastels, duh.
The animals
The (a)Isle of Dogs: displayed in a perfectly symmetrical supermarket aisle, but instead of miscellaneous cleaning products it is stacked with taxidermied Bichon Frises wearing miniature football tops.
The reading material
Books. Lots and lots of books. All the books in the world:
The space
A giant mirror runs down one side of the room, turning the entire exhibition into a perfectly symmetrical masterpiece.
The waxworks
Bill Murray carrying a bike. Bill Murray running for the train. Bill Murray as a badger. Bill Murray with a phenomenal moustache. Bill Murray topless carrying a bottle of wine. Bill Murray being sad. Bill Murray wearing a condom hat.
The End
A map like that one in Moonrise Kingdom, one that purports to lead you to the exit but really just takes you back to where you started, the exhibition’s entrance, and you realise you can never leave the wonderful world of Wes, and you live happily ever after, The End.