A museum featuring dodo bones, living coral, two-headed animals and prints by Pablo Picasso opens in London today.
The Viktor Wynd Museum Of Curiosities, Fine Art And Natural History claims to be the first all-encompassing repository of fascinating wonders to open in London since the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill in 1901.
The venture replaces the Little Shop Of Horrors opened by Mr Wynd in Mare Street, Hackney, in 2009 and intends to be self-financing from the £3 entrance fee, the daytime café turned night-time bar, and through private hires for dinner parties.
Mr Wynd said of his new institution: “It’s an attack on the Ikea society and cleanliness, modernity and tidiness. I want to live a Victorian life surrounded by exquisite clutter.”
The permanent collection includes 19th century babies in Formaldehyde, a lion skeleton, tribal art from New Guinea, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, erotica and stone axes. The upper gallery will hold two exhibitions a year, starting with one on English surrealists.
