iWeltmuseum WienInnere Stadt
Raining Blood. Photography and Arms Trafficking
Photos of c.1900 arms dealers, collection objects and contemporary art trace the global gun trade and challenge colonial myths of 'primitive' weapons.
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You start with a bulletproof vest, and opposite it hang photographs from 1923 of one being tested. Its inventor was a Chicago priest. Around it are older answers to the same fear: a leather chain worn in Sudan and kris daggers believed to house spirits.
The show grows out of a mismatch in the Weltmuseum's own holdings. Its photographs from around 1900 show people in Africa with modern rifles, while its stores hold mostly bows, arrows and ceremonial weapons. The second part turns to the donors: one collector ran an arms factory in Tyrol, and Arthur Rimbaud, three of whose photographs are in the collection, sold more than 2,000 Remington rifles to Menelik II. Contemporary work by eleven artists carries it to the present.
Director Claudia Banz says it is not a show about weapons, which are mostly absent, so come for the archive detective work. It is included in the €16 museum ticket, under-19s are free, and it stays open until 9pm on Tuesdays.
Look for
Maximilian's shot-through waistcoat
François Aubert's photograph of the executed Emperor of Mexico's jacket, bullet holes and all, a picture Napoleon III banned because it exposed the cost of his foreign policy.
Rimbaud's Ethiopian fortifications
Look for the poet's 1885 photograph of fortifications in the Oromo highlands of Itu, taken during the years he was selling rifles to Menelik II.
The 1923 bulletproof vest test
A real bulletproof vest hangs opposite glass-negative photographs of one being shot at in a 1923 test.
The baron and the arms dealers, Jaipur 1886
Joachim von Brenner-Felsach poses with arms dealers outside his tent; the museum says he bought weapons on an Indian black market.
Jittagarn Kaewtinkoy, The Post Eden
A 2025 oil painting whose frame the artist built from spent M16 cartridges.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want to see antique guns: apart from a few exceptions, the weapons themselves aren't on display.
With kids
Under-19s get in free with the regular museum ticket.
Also at Weltmuseum Wien
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iGlaciers out of balance
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iCaution, high voltage! Electrical accidents – a class of their own
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iGood Collecting – Bad Collecting. 150 Years of the Natural History Museum Vienna
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Nearby
Image credits
8
- Raining Blood. Photography and Arms TraffickingKHM-Museumsverband, Weltmuseum Wien
- Glaciers out of balanceJürgen Merz / NHM Wien
- Caution, high voltage! Electrical accidents – a class of their ownNHM Wien
- Good Collecting – Bad Collecting. 150 Years of the Natural History Museum ViennaNHM Wien
- Weltmuseum WienThomas Ledl / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- Kunsthistorisches Museum WienManfred Werner (Tsui), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Natural History Museum Vienna (Naturhistorisches Museum Wien)Stb1er (Dario Premm), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- State Hall of the Austrian National Library (Prunksaal)Mirej / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT