We are revisiting the special presentation of the Collection Leopold that runs until December 31, 2011. The Leopold Collection is not only one of Vienna's many world class arts institutions, it stands alone as an insightful showcase of artists and movements that revolutionized style in the beginning of the 20th century. Today, Vienna is on the threshold of a very important commemoration in the world of the arts. So, in a very tangible sense, the exhibition VIENNA 1900 set a tone for what is to follow. In preparation for this important exhibition the Leopold Museum totally reconfigured its Viennese art from the turn of the century. This reassembly of core areas of the Leopold Museum’s collection was curated by the project’s managers Diethart Leopold and Peter Weinhäupl, in close collaboration with Rudolf and Elisabeth Leopold.
The Jugendstil, Vienna’s Art Nouveau
movement, endeavoured to encompass all areas of life within a
so-called “gesamtkunstwerk” (“total work of art”). Its main exponents
Gustav Klimt,
Furniture, silver, glass and jewellery are presented together with paintings and graphics, showing what could be termed the most exciting era in the history of Viennese art as a unique aesthetic experience. The unconventional manner in which this exhibition covering an entire floor of the museum is set up, opens exciting vistas for those well-versed in the subject and a compact introduction to the theme and the epoch to those new to “Vienna around 1900”. While it will help tourists gain valuable insights into the spirit of Vienna around 1900, the local community will have the opportunity to rediscover the Leopold Collection’s holdings from the turn of the century. The exhibition is on level 4, the topmost floor of the museum. Its position offers a splendid visual link to “Vienna around 1900”. The view from the panorama windows – from the Art History Museum to the New Hofburg – put Vienna’s Ringstrasse in an overall context. The decision to build some of the city’s famous Art Nouveau buildings was made in the course of the urban renewal in the last third of the nineteenth century. Dr. Peter Weinhäupl has conceived a central information room, which also contains a lounge-like platform that provides unique views of late nineteenth-century buildings and the Museum Quartier’s new architecture. City maps, historical photographs and films presented in this exhibition space document the groundbreaking achievements of Vienna’s architects around 1900 – from Otto Wagner to Adolf Loos. Relevance to our times, cross connections to related themes or parallels between the art in Vienna around 1900 and other styles are the integrative elements in the exhibition’s concept. A search object is placed in each room. How these objects relate to the exhibition is explained in a folder as well in the last room. These exhibits are a wonderful instrument for building up suspense and a superb pedagogical tool for the exhibition’s art education programme. In a way, “Vienna at the turn of the century” was also a “programme for a hundred years” as the achievements of art around 1900 have been a lasting influence on twentieth century art. The floral elements of the Secession and Jugendstil are just as sensitive and playful as the furniture designed by the Wiener Werkstätte is cool and sophisticated. The exhibition clearly communicates this “evolution in taste” which began around 1900. Expressionism’s profundity (Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl) is equally highlighted as the influences of psychoanalysis on the “undiscovered country of the soul” and the exploration of “sex and character”. The grand furnishings of the aristocracy was the motive to provide information about the historical background and social movements in the last days of the monarchy. The end of the First World War concludes the exhibition. The presentation in the new rooms is based on an informal chronology of “the end of taste”. The exhibits are arranged thematically around the most important artistic inventions from what can be termed as the most fertile era in the history of Austrian art.
“SECESSION” ROOM This room is focused on the generation of artists preceding the Secessionists. Among them were doyens like Hans Makart (1840-1884) or the main proponent of Atmospheric Expressionism and the father of the femme fatale Alma Mahler, Emil Jakob Schindler (1842-1892), Theodor von Hörmann (1840-1916), Olga Wisinger-Florian (1844-1926) and Carl Moll (1891-1945), the founding father of the Secession. Schindler painted the "Poplar-lined Avenue near Plankenberg” ("Die Pappelallee bei Plankenberg”, 1890) during his summer vacations with his students at Plankenberg in Lower Austria. Also Carl Moll was a student of Emil Jakob Schindler. His atmospheric painting “Winter at the Hohe Warte” (“Winter auf der Hohe Warte”, 1912/14) goes a step beyond plein-air painting. Its square format, choice of view and cursory brushwork make this picture a typical example of Viennese painting at the beginning of the twentieth century. The central piece in this room is a slender, elegant table by Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), the founder of the Wiener Werkstätte. Its design follows the Secession’s motto “To the Time its Art. To Art its Freedom”, coined by the art critic Ludwig Hevesi, and is in stark contrast to Altdeutsch furniture from the end of the nineteenth century. Placed on the table is a distinctive putto by Michael Powolny (1871/1954), the founder of the porcelain firm Wiener Keramik. Historic/sociological information from fin-de-si cle literature, for instance, inspires the visitor to find out more about the most fertile ground of the era. The emphasis here lies on the emergence of a “culture of sentiment” (Gefühlskultur), which resulted from political weakness. The majestically presented work drawing by Kolo Moser (1868-1918) for the Engelsfenster (Window of the Angels) exemplifies that stylisation was also prevalent in the field of sacral art. Posters announcing Secession exhibitions or the Kaiser-Jubiläums-Huldigungs-Festzuges (Procession in the Emperor’s honour, 1908) by Ferdinand Ludwig Graf (1868-1932) are great achievements of graphic art at the turn of the century. SEARCH OBJECTS: Two rock’n’roll posters by Clifford C. Seeley and Wes Wilson from the 1960s. These artists, whose work is an integral part of the Fine Arts Museum San Francisco, borrow formal structures from the Jugendstil. The Secession-style dreamy, floral, elements can be seen as antecedents of the so-called Flower Power hippie movement.
“KOLO MOSER” ROOM SEARCH OBJECT: Gerda Leopold, “Struktur”, colour lithograpphy – the formal arrangement of the structural construction of a bridge, which the artist who lives in Berlin – and is the daughter of the collector Rudolf Leopold – based her painting on, shows a process that resembles the Secessionist style: the concrete object vanishes behind its purely formal, almost entirely abstract structure.
"Life and Death" by Gustav Klimt
“GUSTAV KLIMT” ROOM This section also includes photographs of Klimt’s studio and references to the relationship between Jugendstil and Japanese art (Japonism period). The links between music and philosophy assume concrete form in an audio-environment where the visitor can listen to the fourth and fifth movements of Gustav Mahler’s (1860-1911) Third Symphony in which, among others, also parts of Zarathustra’s Nachtwanderlied by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) were set to music. SEARCH OBJECT: Ukiyo-e, eighteenth and the nineteenth century Japanese woodcuts were particularly desirable collector items among fin-de-siecle artists. These even adorned a half-wall in Klimt’s last studio (see info-text on “Japonism”). Although Klimt’s own originals were not available for this exhibition, almost all of them share the flatness of plane and emphasis on contours. These aesthetic principles were an important influence in the genesis of modern European art.
“PSYCHOANALYSIS” ROOM SEARCH OBJECT: Two African Masks from the Congo and Dogon. The manner in which the human face, placed within a strongly geometrical outline (oval, rectangle, triangle, etc), is abstracted to a few striking features fascinated not only Picasso but also Schiele, who unconsciously incorporated these aspects in several drawings and paintings. Schiele, however, did not own any African masks. The formal vocabulary and the archetypical iconography of African tribal art were certainly in the air in those days. The mask definitely played a major role in psychoanalysis and in the modern forms of therapy founded on it: be it a protective hiding place or rigid expression of the “character armour”, or a medium for expressing and embodying the super personal and spiritual.
“CITY AND ARCHITECTURE” ROOM Rapid increase in population is addressed here in equal terms as the social problems or the distinctiveness that resulted from the city’s expansion. Also part of the theme are the new segments of the population such as the numerous migrant workers employed in the brick factories in southern Vienna, the so-called “Ziegelböhmen” (Brick-Bohemians), with whose help the grand buildings on the Ringstrasse were built. SEARCH OBJECT: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow School of Art, Photograph. This building was realized in 1897 and was to influence European architecture significantly. The contrast between the enclosed and block like method of construction with a fractured surface texture – together a charming example of geometric rigidness – became a paradigm for Secessionism.
Wiener Werkstätte Room
“WIENER WERKSTÄTTE” ROOM SEARCH OBJECT: Three objects from Carl Auböck’s studio, Vienna: a sake bottle-like vase, a stylized sake cup and an ashtray. While clarity in abstract form, and careful choice and treatment of material link Auböck’s studio with the Wiener Werkstätte, a different design philosophy becomes apparent here in the endeavour to expand distribution by simplifying and economizing production and to be less elitist than its more famous counterpart that was always looking out for profit.
“RICHARD GERSTL, MATHILDE AND ARNOLD
SCHÖNBERG” ROOM Visitors can listen to movements 3 and 4 from Arnold Schönberg’s Quartet in F sharp Minor at a column in the room. This is among the compositions in which Schönberg tried to come to terms with the dramatic events of 1908. Two poems by Stefan George (1868-1933) serve as lyrics for the soprano in the same Quartet, which could be read as a text about the tragic three-way relationship. A six-legged table designed by Adolf Loos (1870-1933) occupies the centre of the room.
"Reclining boy" by Egon Schiele
“EXPRESSIONISM – KOKOSCHKA AND SCHIELE”
ROOM SEARCH OBJECT: Photograph by Lisa Bufano from the series “The Charm of Harm“ by Gerhard Aba. As in Expressionist works, these photographs also represent the agony of the human being trapped in its body. However, Aba and Bufano address this theme with a degree of tragicomic irony in their work. Nevertheless, the choice of theme does not mean that formal criteria are ignored in the composition. To the contrary, these played an equally important role in Austrian Expressionism as they do in the works of the Viennese photographers.
“THE FIRST WORLD WAR – END OF AN ERA” ROOM Wittenstein’s diary entry and his biography (Ray Monk) reveal that Wittgenstein wanted to meet the poet Georg Trakl (1887-1914). However, their meeting never took place for the latter died just then under mysterious circumstances, either because he had committed suicide or as the result of drug consumption. A selection of scenes from the apocalyptic “Last Days of Mankind” by Karl Kraus (1987-1956) are included in the show in the form of an audio-play performed by Helmut Qualtinger. Also on display are documentary films of the funeral of Emperor Franz Josef 1 (1839-1916) in 1916, or scenes from the World War. Photos of the First World War from the Fritz Simak collection complete the image of a time when a flourishing culture ended with the collapse of an era, which was also a time for new beginnings. New prospects began to bud when Austria was declared a Republic, bringing with them the promise of democracy. However, the dream was to end two decades later, when the Nazis marched into the country … SEARCH OBJECT: Heinrich Heuer “Guillotine” – a surrealist painting with collage-like elements like falling bodies, targets etc. depict the threats of war. But above all, these template-like forms convey the loss of humane qualities in an environment full of violence. Editor's note: At this point we must acknowledge the assistance that enabled us to bring you this article. As much as we enjoy our role on the periphery of the arts, we are not experts in this highly specialized field. Fortunately, the Leopold Museum has an outstanding public relations department staffed with knowledgeable personnel who communicate effectively about the Leopold Museum and its collection. To this extraordinary group of professionals, we say thank you.
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Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann are synonymous with the
art of the Vienna Secession around 1900. This new presentation of the
Leopold Museum’s holdings – complemented by several significant works
on loan – features the works from the Vienna Secession together with
paintings and prints from Expressionism to the end of the First World
War (Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Anton Kolig, Herbert Boeckl and
many others) as well as several fascinating examples of Wiener
Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop) design.
