May Art Guide - Vienna

Recommendations of what to see in the Vienna art scene this month by our local guide, Itai Margula. Discover more on a private art tour!

I.

Exhibition: MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ - TWO HEARTS
Artist: Marina Abramovic
Venue: Galerie Krinzinger
Dates: Until June 9th, 2018

Marina Abramovic’s relation to Krinzinger gallery goes back to 1975, when the documentation of her performance Thomas Lips was shown at the gallery in Innsbruck. A pioneer of performance art and its establishment as a visual art form, Abramovic cemented her stardom status with the durational performance 'The Artist is
Present' at Moma New York in 2010. Simultaneously with her exhibition, the GLOBART think tank awarded Marina Abramović the GLOBART AWARD 2018, naming her as the most important performance artist of the present. The ceremony took place on April 25, 2018 at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Marina Abramović, Miracle 4, 2018 © Marina Abramović, Courtesy Marina Abramović
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II.

Exhibition: KLIMT’S MAGIC GARDEN A Virtual Reality Experience by Frederick Baker
Artist: Frederick Baker
Venue: MAK Museum of Applied Arts Vienna
Dates: Until October 7th, 2018

Marking the centenary of the death of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), MAK Vienna invited the virtual reality artist and filmmaker Frederick Baker to engage in a virtual reality experiment, inspired by Klimt’s masterpieces Expectation and Fulfillment. Using high-resolution digital photographic material, he creates a virtual world in which visitors can embark on an interactive film journey through a Klimt inspired world. Due to high interest in the exhibition, making a reservation ahead of your visit on the museum’s website is highly recommended.

FREDERICK BAKER, still from the director’s cut KLIMT’S MAGIC GARDEN: A VIRTUAL
REALITY EXPERIENCE BY FREDERICK BAKER, 2018 © FREDERICK BAKER

III.

Exhibition: Bouchra Khalili
Artist: Bouchra Khalili
Venue: Secession
Dates: Until June 17th, 2018

Bouchra Khalili’s work articulates subjectivity and collective history, questioning the complex relationships between the singular and civic belonging. Her first solo exhibition in Austria features the video trilogy The Speeches Series (2012–13), a selection from the mixed media installation Foreign Office (2015), and The Tempest Society (2017), a film premiered at documenta 14. Challenging our collective historiography, she outlines a history of the individual as narrated by its protagonists, who are members of social minorities.

© "Foreign Office," 2015 Bouchra Khalili Exhibition view, Secession 2018
(Courtesy the artist and Galerie Polaris, Paris, Photo: Oliver Ottenschläger)

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April Art Guide - Vienna

Recommendations of what to see in the Vienna art scene this month by our local guide, Itai Margula. Discover more on a private art tour!

I.

Exhibition: Rachel Whiteread
Artist: Rachel Whiteread
Venue:  Belvedere 21
Dates: Until July 29th, 2018

Rachel Whiteread was commissioned by the city of Vienna to design the Holocaust Memorial at Judenplatz, and although it was supposed to be finished in 1996, the unveiling of the monument took place in October 2000. With this monument, the British artist left a lasting mark on the city and transformed the discourse surrounding remembrance. It then took another eighteen years to have the first solo exhibition of the artist in a museum. This exhibition was made possible by Belvedere 21 together with Tate Britain, London, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in cooperation with the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Untitled (stairs) ©Alexandra Matzner for ARTinWORDS

II.

Exhibition: Cécile B. Evans AMOS' WORLD: Episode One
Artist: Cécile B. Evans
Venue: Mumok
Dates: Until July 1st, 2018 

For her show at mumok, Cecile B. Evans creates an architectural video installation. Conceived as a television show set in a socially progressive housing estate, the latest work of the artist: AMO’S WORLD: episode one, is a post-internet dystopia, dealing amongst other things, with the ever greater role technology takes on our feelings and perception. The exhibition is curated by Marianne Dobner.

AMO’S WORLD, 2017 video still, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Emanuel Layr Vienna/Rome

III.

Exhibition: Teddy Kollek. The Viennese mayor of Jerusalem
Artists: curated by Marcus Patka and Elke-Vera Kotowski
Venue: Jewish Museum Vienna
Dates: April 11th, 2018 until November 25th, 2018

 
Teddy Kollek was the mayor of Jerusalem for almost thirty years (1965 to 1993). Growing up in Vienna, Kollek left Austria at 24, heading towards Palestine in 1935. His life journey marks the constantly worsening conditions in Vienna before the Anschluss. However, Kollek had always stayed in contact with his former home country and helped build bridges between Austria and Israel. Even the long history of the Jewish Museum is connected to Kollek, but you can find out more by visiting the exhibition curated by Marcus Patka and Elke-Vera Kotowski. 

© David Rubinger, YEDIOTH AHARONOT

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February Art Guide - Vienna

Recommendations of what to see in the Vienna art scene this month by our local guide, Itai Margula. Discover even more on a private tour.

I.

Exhibition: GÜNTER BRUS Unrest after the Storm
Artist: Günter Brus
Venue:  Belvedere 21 Haus
Dates: February 2nd to August 11th, 2018

Belvedere 21 holds a retrospective exhibition of the Austrian artist Günter Brus on the occasion of his 80 years anniversary. Curated by Harald Krejci, the comprehensive show sheds light on the different stages of his artistic career. If in his early work, Günter Brus used the body as the basis for the painterly process, in his later performances and actions the body served as the screen onto which he projected his critique of society. Probably his most recognizable work “Wiener Spaziergang” from 1965 - a high point also in the Wiener Aktionismus history as well – will always remain a landmark in the Viennese consciousness. 

Photo: Ludwig Hoffenreich © Günter Brus

II.

Exhbition: From the inside to the outside
Artists: Carola Dertnig, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Martha Wilson, Kristin Oppenheim, 
Markus Schinwald
Venue: Galerie Crone Wien
Dates: January 17th to March 3rd, 2018 

Galerie Crone opened its second location in Vienna in the fall of 2015. The current show featuring prominent Austrian and international artists brings together artists who deal with the body as a means of expression, platform, or tool of their artistic creation. Categories such as age or gender are questioned as well as beauty ideals or social conventions. Martha Wilson’s work ‘Makeover: Melania (2017)’ for example, makes use of the digital image altering techniques, which not only allow her face to be transformed in that of Melania Trum within seconds, but also points out to the erasure of age through contemporary post production techniques.

Photo: Ashley Hans Scheirl © Ernst Herold 2016

III.

Exhibition: Guy Mees. The weather is quiet, cool and soft
Artists: Guy Mees
Venue: Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz
Dates: February 1st to April 29th, 2018

Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz dedicates its first exhibition of the year to Guy Mees (1935–2003), a leading figure of the Belgian avant-garde, in the first exhibition in Austria to focus exclusively on his work. A member of the “New Flemish School” he was in touch with an international network of artists affiliated with the neoavant-garde from Europe, Japan, and North and South America. The exhibition curated by Lilou Vidal features different phases in Mees’ career to shed light on his intuitive and conceptual approach from the beginning of the 1960s to his last works from the 2000s. The selected works allow an overview of his ideas of mutability, fragility, and the expansion of pictorial space into real space.

Photo: Exhibition View © Jorit Aust

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Vienna Art Guide - January

Recommendations of what to see in the Vienna art scene this month by local guide, Itai Margula. Discover even more on a private tour.

I.

Exhibition: Israel before Israel – Photographs by Ze´ev Aleksandrowicz 1936
Artist: Ze´ev Aleksandrowicz
Venue: Jewish Museum Vienna
Dates: November 22nd to April 1st, 2018

Ze’ev Aleksandrowicz was a Zionist and enthusiastic photographer. Born in Kraków as the son of a paper wholesaler, he also spent a short time as a student in Vienna. Tel Aviv, the first modern Jewish city founded in 1909, exerted a particular fascination on him. Years after his death in 1992, the photos from the 1930s were discovered by chance: more than 15,000 negatives gathering dust in an old suitcase.

Foto: Ze ́ev Aleksandrowicz © Jewish Museum Vienna

II.

Exhibition: MAXIMAL SOFT
Artist: Liesl Raff
Venue: Sophie Tappeiner
Dates: January 18th to March 18th, 2018

Sophie Tappeiner opened her gallery in May 2017. Next to one of Vienna´s ´Gallery Streets' called Seilerstätte, a promising space with auspicious installations. The next exhibition by Liesl Raff – always poetic, always spacial. Liesl Raff (born 1979 in Stuttgart, lives and works in Vienna) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Recent exhibitions and projects include: my moment is now yours at Bob's Pogo Bar, KW Institute of Art, Berlin, DE (in collaboration with Nora Rekade); So do I at One Work Gallery, Vienna, AT; How far to open up at Forum Stadtpark, Graz, AT (2017); A Thousand Friends, Exo Exo at New Jörg, Vienna, AT (2016); Peak Experiences, Shangrila, Joshua Tree, CA, USA (2015); Reflecting Fashion at Mumok, Vienna, AT (2012).

Photo: Liesl Raff © Liesl Raff (artist) Ismini Adami (graphic design)

III.

Exhibition: Specific Objecthood (KW) – Sugar Cravings (CK)
Artists: Kay Walkowiak, Charlotte Klobassa
Venue: Zeller Van Almsick
Dates: Kay Walkowiak (through January 13th) Charlotte Klobassa (through February 22nd)

Magdalena Zeller and Cornelis van Almsick opened their gallery with a wonderful program and a focus on up-and-coming artists in March 2017. Kay Walkowiak´s installation ‘Specific Objecthood’ is based on the formal vocabulary of the Minimal Art. His video installation shows a movie that was shot in Josef Frank´s Villa Beer (1930).
In her ongoing series ‘Scribble’, Charlotte Klobassa draws inspiration from collected pieces of paper she finds in stationary shops. The papers with test scribbles of unknown authorship manifest a very imminent, impulsive and unconscious composition and lend themselves to free association and interpretation.

Photo: Kay Walkowiak © Kay Walkowiak

Photo: Charlotte Klobassa © Charlotte Klobassa

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Vienna Art Guide - November

I.

Exhibition: Robert Frank
Artist: Robert Frank
Venue: Albertina
DATES: Until January 21st, 2018

A group of photos shot by Robert Frank between 1955 and 1957, made photographic history: these works, which Frank took on a series of road trips through the US, illuminate the post-war 'American way of life', revealing a reality of pervasive racism, violence, and consumer culture. Curated by: Walter Moser.

Foto: Robert Frank © Albertina

II.

Exhibition: Natural Histories – Traces oft he Political
ARTISTS: Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Stan Douglas, Candita Höfer, Margherita Spiluttini etc.
Venue: Mumok
Dates: Until January 14th, 2018

The exhibition explores representations of nature in reference to social processes and historical events. The presentation spans the period from the 1960s to the present, beginning with works of conceptual art that reflect on both the conditions of artistic production and reception and also their social dimensions and critiques of history. Curated by: Rainer Fuchs.

Foto: Joseph Beuys, Courtesy Archiv Block, Berlin © Bildrecht Wien, 2017

III.

Exhibition: Aging Pride
Artists: Carola Dertnig, Lucian Freud, Alex Katz, Gustav Klimt, Nives Widauer etc.
Venue: Belvedere Wien
Dates: November 17th, 2017 to to March 8th, 2018

Anti-aging is heard more often in our society than the wisdom of age, it would seem. Bowing to the cult of youth, images of age are often dictated by the cosmetics industry. Countering this are the many historical and contemporary works by artists pursuing a completely different idea of age. For the first time these are being showcased in a comprehensive exhibition at Belvedere.

Foto: Daniela Beranek © Margot Pilz, 2010

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