Wilfried Seipel
Director of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum to retire in January
MúzeumCafé 8.
Although an Egyptologist, Wilfried Seipel chose for his pre-retirement farewell exhibition a display of 20th-century Russian cartoonists and propaganda artists. Brass tanks, Marx and Lenin stand sentry on the second floor. “I’ve always wanted a museum where it’s not only snobbery that gets people in; where young people also like going; where I feel like taking my grandchildren. “My parents favoured the natural science museum. Then I became infatuated with Egypt in grammar school and wanted to be an archaeologist. During my last school trip I decided to continue with ancient cultures. We spent two weeks in Cairo and Luxor and I was even lucky enough to try the open-top sports car of Howard Carter, the Egyptologist who discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. Persuading the guard to let me drive the apple-green convertible Chevrolet without a licence was the most difficult. From there my way to university was straightforward. I read classics and philology at the faculty of arts of Vienna University. That was followed by Germany. At the time German universities were of a better standard than in Austria. But a graduate must go abroad, to America and Asia, and learn to think and see from different aspects, to gain experience for about twenty years. It included doing my PhD on Egyptian queens, after which I worked at the collection of papyri at the University of Heidelberg, followed by the universities of Berlin, Hamburg and Konstanz.
“I spent several months at the excavations near the Nile Delta. The exhibition I put on from the collection of the university in Konstanz was prompted by my experiences there. The whole thing started when I was asked to get the university’s mummy restored. I took the ‘old lady’ and drove her all the way to the restoration workshop of a Munich museum. Half a year later, its restoration completed, I organised an Egyptian archaeological exhibition. The mummy didn’t quite fit the concept but nevertheless she welcomed visitors in the foyer. The visitors book was full of positive comments about her, rather than the exhibits themselves. “However, what I found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1990 when I was appointed director was even more surprising. The conditions were almost medieval and some sections had no lighting. The beautiful building opened in 1891 had not been modernised since. “The world’s most wonderful art treasures are lost to the eye if museum organisers lack a well-considered concept. When I took over, museums were rather indefinite points of the city. The Viennese, like foreign visitors, went practically only to the opera and theatres. Besides renovation, we had to put ourselves on the international museum map. Over the years the Hermitage and the Guggenheim have become our contracted partners. We have held exhibitions in Mexico, Beijing and at present 75 of our still life paintings are on tour in Japan. We have proved we can organise exciting exhibitions, for example the Goya, El Greco and the Giorgione exhibitions, or last year’s Benin and this year’s Arcimboldo exhibition. Last year the museum loaned 1200 works of art. The state’s financial provision has not changed for ten years, and now this sum covers 60 per cent of our costs; the rest has to be earned. Sponsors cover two per cent of our annual expenses. The museum’s association of friends totalling 6300 members greatly supports our work – this year their helped raise 360,000 euros. We have an increasing income from entrance tickets, museum shop sales, copyright, book publication and loaning fees.
“But we would never under any circumstances lend Pieter Bruegel’s large panels such as Hunters in the Snow. Raffaello’s Madonna is also a no-go.
Benvenuto Cellini’s salt-cellar? Don’t mention it! Even today it makes me shiver when I think of the three-year nightmare which began on 11 May 2003. The following day the papers were full of a Viennese security engineer who climbed up the scaffolding at 3 a.m. and with a single crowbar broke in and took the prey – the silver salt-cellar made around 1540 and worth 35 million euros. I offered my resignation but the ministry didn’t accept it.
“In the end the item was found and the lessons of the robbery will be included in my book about my 18 years spent in the museum. The story includes how public opinion turned the robber into a hero who got several marriage proposals during his time in prison. He even started his own website for his fans. He has become a legend in a way a museum director can only dream of.”