VIENNA 1900
BIRTH OF MODERNISM

Since 16.03.2019
Levels 4, 3, 0

The extensive exhibition spanning three floors presents the splendor and wealth of artistic and intellectual achievements of an era shaped by the emergence of the Vienna Secession,the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and the death of eminent artists of VienneseModernism,including Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Koloman Moser and Otto Wagner in 1918.

The new presentation not only shows masterpieces from the collection of the Leopold Museum but – thanks to permanent loans from international and Austrian collections – is able to convey a sense of the atmosphere of this vibrant era with all its contradictions. For the Danube metropolis was both the city of high nobility and of liberal intellectuals, of the magnificent Ringstrasse and endless slum areas, of anti-Semitism and Zionism, of rigid Conservatism and emerging Modernism. Splendor and squalor, dream and reality, dissolution of the self and new beginning characterize the esthetic pluralism and mark the Vienna of that time as a place of experiments and a laboratory of ideas – as a central motor to a turbulent movement of renewal. This heterogeneous atmosphere – Arnold Schönberg spoke of an “emancipation of dissonance” – became the breeding ground for the unique consolidation of cultural efforts that today makes us look upon the period of Vienna around 1900 as the source of Modernism. This departure unfolded in various disciplines, from painting and the graphic arts via literature, music, theater, dance and architecture, all the way to medicine, psychology, philosophy, jurisprudence and economics.

Following an overture outlining the time of Makart and the formations of Realism and Atmospheric Impressionism of Austrian provenance, level 4 of the exhibition focuses on the innovative achievements of the Secessionists (Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Carl Moll etc.) and on the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or universal work of art, which allowed for art to permeate all areas of life, not least owing to the applied arts. Level 3 illustrates how exponents of Austrian Expressionism (Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele etc.) overcame the Stilkunst style. The Expressionists, as painting explorers of the soul, were no longer able to negate the dissolution of the self, which occurred in the political and social sphere and especially on an individual level, prompting them to embark on a radically different path. The final chord of the exhibition is provided on the ground floor with a presentation of the multi-faceted artistic formations oscillating between an abstracting-Expressionist style (Anton Kolig, Herbert Boeckl, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky etc.) and positions of New Objectivity (Rudolf Wacker, Otto Rudolf Schatz, Grete Freist etc.). On the invitation of Director Hans-Peter Wipplinger, a panel of experts supported this inter-disciplinary research project in the shape of numerous symposia held in 2018 at the Leopold Museum together with the museum’s team of curators. Among the team of experts are Andrea Amort (dance), Bazon Brock (esthetics), Monika Faber (photography), Allan Janik (philosophy and economics), Stefan Kutzenberger (literature), Diethard Leopold (genesis of the collection), Monika Meister (theater), Therese Muxeneder (music), Ernst Ploil (applied arts), Ivan Ristić(architecture), August Ruhs (psychology), Daniele Schmid (Jewish culture), Burghart Schmidt (philosophy) and Thomas Zaunschirm (art history). Their findings will enter into the presentation through different artefacts.

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