Design by Urs Lüthi

On behalf of the Kunstgesellschaft Luzern, Urs Lüthi, an internationally renowned artist with local roots, designed the café in the Kunstmuseum for its opening in 2015. The artist determined all the café’s design details, from the cushions, the café counter and tables, to the display cases, in which he presents his personal collection – a virtual curiosity cabinet full of different objects: a female figure in a lascivious pose is paired with an unembellished architectural model, an African mask with a flower vase boasting a taxidermy bird, a lucky four-leaf clover with a sailing boat. In this manner, the artist shows us the collecting mania considered to be the precursor to European museums. Starting in the 14th century, individual European sovereignties created what they called wonder cabinets or chambers of curiosities, bringing together items from all over the world – spoils of war and handcrafted treasures, kept by the sole and sometimes problematic desire to own something to show to an exclusive group of people. Beyond just displaying exotic objects, Urs Lüthi is also addressing issues that every museum is concerned with: What should be collected and preserved? How can the objects be appropriately displayed and their significance communicated?