EXHIBITIONS 2015 Belvedere and Winter Palace
Schedule
Upper and Lower Belvedere
The Perfect Tourist Takes the Perfect Picture Belvedere Gardens 15 June 2014 to 15 June 2015
Jeff Koons - Hulk Upper Belvedere, Sala terrena 4 September 2014 to 4 October 2015
Masterpieces in Focus Josef Dobrowsky Perception and Colour Upper Belvedere 17 September 2014 to 18 January 2015
Hagenbund A European Network of Modernism (1900 to 1938) Lower Belvedere 11 October 2014 to 1 February 2015
LOOKING AT MONET The Great Impressionist and His Influence on Austrian Art Orangery 24 October 2014 to 8 February 2015
Belvedere Christmas tree 2014 Merry HanuKwanzMas! By Verena Dengler Upper Belvedere, Sala terrena 29 November 2014 to 19 January 2015
Jasper Johns: Regrets Upper Belvedere 13 January to 26 April 2015
EUROPE IN VIENNA The Congress of Vienna 1814/15 Lower Belvedere and Orangery 20 February to 21 June 2015
CURRENTLY RESTORED Fragment of the Lenten Veil by Thomas of Villach Medieval Treasury Study Collection in the Palace Stables 6 March to 25 May 2015
Masterpieces in Focus: Friedrich Loos An Artist‘s Life between Vienna, Rome and the North Upper Belvedere 27 March to 12 July 2015
Franz West - Room in Vienna Belvedere Gardens Since April 2015
Ernesto Neto - O tempo lento do corpo que é pele Upper Belvedere, Marble Hall 23 June to 31 August 2015
Klimt and the Ringstrasse A Showcase of Grandeur Lower Belvedere 3 July to 11 October 2015
The Ploner Collection Orangerie 8 July to 27 September 2015
A Hommage to Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller On the 150th anniversary of his death Upper Belvedere 17 July to 26 October 2015
More than ZERO Hans BISCHOFFSHAUSEN Orangery 8 October 2015 to 14 February 2016
The Women of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka Lower Belvedere 22 October 2015 to 28 February 2016
Masterpieces in Focus Gerhart Frankl - Restless Upper Belvedere 18 November 2015 to 3 April 2016
Belvedere Christmas Tree 2015 Manfred Erjautz - Under the Weight of Light Upper Belvedere 28 November 2015 to 2 February 2016
Winter Palace
Martin van Meytens the Younger Winter Palace 18 October 2014 to 15 February 2015
Vienna for Art’s Sake! Contemporary Art Show Winter Palace 27 February to 31 May 2015
Rembrandt - Titian - Bellotto Spirit and Splendour of the Dresden Picture Gallery Winter Palace 11 June to 8 November 2015
OLAFUR ELIASSON BAROQUE BAROQUE Winter Palace 21 November 2015 to 6 March 2016 A cooperation between Belvedere, TBA21 and The Juan & Patricia Vergez Collection
Upper and Lower Belvedere
The Perfect Tourist Takes the Perfect Picture Belvedere Gardens 15 June 2014 to 15 June 2015
With his art installation The Perfect Tourist, Hubertus von Hohenlohe invites both Viennese citizens and tourists to capture the magic of Belvedere Palace in a perfect photograph. Frequently tourists concentrate on collecting photographs or on handling digital devices, while reality moves out of focus. However, those unaware of their surroundings will not be capable of reproducing the spirit of a particular place in a photograph. This is why the one-year project The Perfect Tourist offers visitors to the Belvedere Gardens an opportunity to immortalise themselves in the Baroque ambience of the Lower and the Upper Belvedere with the aid of a specially designed mirror. Once the perfect picture has been taken, the perfect tourist can put the camera away and enjoy the beauty and power of the moment. A mirror measuring approximately 2 by 2.5 metres is positioned in the Belvedere Gardens halfway between the Upper and the Lower Belvedere in such a way that from a given mark and thanks to the principle of reflection both the Upper and the Lower Belvedere plus the spectator can be captured in a photograph. The installation thus meets the desire of tourists for a perfect photographic documentation of their the installation also addresses such notions as reflection and self-reflection and representation and self- representation century-old fundamental points of reference of artistic ambition. The photographer, help people take the perfect photograph at impressive places around the globe year after year, at the Belvedere Gardens. The next stops will be Sydney (Sydney Opera House) and Berlin (Brandenburg Gate).
Jeff Koons - Hulk Upper Belvedere, Sala terrena 4 September 2014 to 4 October 2015
The Sala terrena in the Upper Belvedere is joined by another titan: Hulk (Friensds) by artist Jeff Koons will be supporting the four atlantes with his steel power. The stainless steel sculptures by US-artist Jeff Koons became popular in the art market not only for obtaining gigantic prices at auctions but also for the playfulness and lightness of these bronce giants, which became indispensable from the current art discourse. - rigid material. Their highly polished surfaces give them a sublime charisma, allowing also Hulk (Friends) to be integrated in the Sala terrena. From September, the action figure together with its comic-like friends will join the row of giants, enchanting visitors with its radiating power.
Masterpieces in Focus Josef Dobrowsky Perception and Colour Upper Belvedere 17 September 2014 to 18 January 2015
In autumn 2014, the Belvedere will highlight the oeuvre of the Austrian painter Josef Dobrowsky (1889 1964), one of the most important Austrian artists of the interwar years and a trailblazer of Modernist painting in Austria, within the framework of the exhibition series Masterpieces in Focus. Appreciated by experts, his works have remained practically unknown to the general public. Born in Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary) in 1889, Dobrowsky moved to Vienna at the age of eleven, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1906 on under Christian Griepenkerl and Rudolf Bacher and joined the Vienna Secession influence, but are also indebted to Gustav Klimt, Ferdinand Hodler, and Albin Egger-Lienz. Starting around 1920, Dobrowsky took an interest in Dutch painting, especially in the work of Pieter Breughel the Elder, which is reflected in the warm, dark, and earthy colours of his works from this period. The characteristic employment of colour and light contrasts lends a melancholic atmosphere to his pictures, particularly to became more expressive, and he took to using brighter and more brilliant colours. During this phase, besides painting landscapes, he also increasingly devoted himself to portraiture and still life. Between 1946 and 1963 he taught the master class for painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where, among others, Alfred Hrdlicka, Josef Mikl, and Wolfgang Hollegha numbered among his students. When Dobrowsky died in 1964, he left a comprehensive oeuvre, for which he had received numerous awards, such as the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1962. Masterpieces in Focus: Josef Dobrowsky - Perception and Colour will present the entire spectrum of this artist, who has so far received only insufficient recognition. Besides oil paintings, the exhibition will include drawings and outstanding watercolours. The exhibitions held within the series Masterpieces in Focus are realized with the kind support of the Dorotheum.
Hagenbund A European Network of Modernism (1900 to 1938) Lower Belvedere 11 October 2014 to 1 February 2015
The Vienna artist association Hagenbund had a major impact both on the local and Central European art scene between the years 1900 and 1938. It brought together various styles and advanced as early as 1907 to become a leading association for modern art, soon moving beyond Secessionism to represent current trends ranging from Expressionism to New Objectivity. This artist association and its members established themselves through inclusive exhibition policies. Indeed, there was a group show featuring Hungarian, Polish, Czech, and German artists as early as 1907. The Hagenbund therefore represented an after 1918, it was the Hagenbund that provided innovative impulses. It was thanks to the Hagenbund that many fundamental exhibitions of modern art were staged one of the most unrecognized phenomena in Austrian art history. Hagenbund - A European Network of Modernism (1900 to 1938) aims to present this European network and its activities in an innovative way and to provide new perspectives on the development of Austrian modernism, especially between the two world wars. The show is not dedicated to the battle of the isms or classifying art according to formal criteria but addresses the influences and
interactions between artists in Vienna, Prague, Munich, Budapest, Lemberg (Lviv), Bratislava, Cracow, and Trieste. This network analysis will for the first time be used as an art-historical tool to explore over nine historic exhibitions staged by the Hagenbund, thus conveying to the viewer this reevaluation of artistic developments in the interwar period. Furthermore, the show presents the interim findings of the two-year Belvedere research project, sponsored by the Österreichische Nationalbank, on the topic of European Network Hagenbund - 1900 to 1938.
LOOKING AT MONET The Great Impressionist and His Influence on Austrian Art Orangery 24 October 2014 to 8 February 2015
From 24 October 2014 to 8 February 2015, the exhibition Looking at Monet in the Orangery of the Lower Belvedere will present icons of Impressionism within a survey unique across Europe, as well as their multiple impacts on domestic art production. Thanks to first-rate loans from around the globe, the exhibition will assemble key works by Claude Monet, some of which have never been on view in Austria. Eighteen years after its legendary Monet exhibition in 1996, the Belvedere will again be featuring the maste on Monet as a source of inspiration for contemporary artists who came to emulate his motifs and brushwork. Selected works by this pioneer of modernism will enter into a dialogue with those by Austrian reproduced in magazines and books and displayed in Vienna in exhibitions at the Künstlerhaus, the Secession, and the legendary Miethke Gallery. The large-scale exhibition The Development of Impressionism in Painting and Sculpture of 1903 at the Vienna Secession can be said to have been the most impressive among these shows. It was then that the so- The Chef (Monsieur Paul) Fishermen on the Seine near Poissy (1882) and eventually one of his masterpieces, (1902), some 30 principal works by Claude Monet, some of which have never been on view in Austria, including the world-famous paintings of Rouen Cathedral, several versions of Waterloo Bridge in London, and the late paintings of the water lilies. These will be juxtaposed with works by such Austrian contemporaries and followers as Gustav Klimt, Herbert Boeckl, Heinrich Kühn, Carl Moll, Emil Jakob Schindler, Max Weiler, and Olga Wisinger-Florian. Their works exhibit and visualise the traces the Frenchman left in Austrian landscape painting and photography.
Belvedere Christmas tree 2014 Merry HanuKwanzMas! By Verena Dengler Upper Belvedere, Sala terrena 29 November 2014 to 19 January 2015
Dengler (b.1981 in Vienna): from 28 November 2014 an opulently decorated blue spruce, whose decoration combines Jewish, Pan-African and Christian symbols, will be dominating the Upper s in order to visualize
the construction of traditions as well as the form design of assimilation. In this context, pop-cultural references and neologisms are playing a central role, as well as the juxtaposition of mass production and unique works of art. Belvedere Christmas tree designed by various artists.
Jasper Johns: Regrets Upper Belvedere 13 January to 26 April 2015
With Jasper Johns: Regrets, the Upper Belvedere is presenting not only one of the most important and multifaceted American artists, but also the last year and a half, and gives visitors the chance to see one of the most important series in Jasper and prints. Each of the two paintings is titled Regrets. This title is developed from a stamp that Johns had produced about five years ago, in order to swiftly decline the stream of requests and invitations that he frequently receives. Enlarged as a screen print, the words on the stamp appear in the top right corner of discovers an old photograph of the young artist Lucian Freud in an auction catalogue. The photograph, part of a series taken around 1964 by the British photographer John Deakin, shows the young artist Lucian Freud perched on a bed, one arm raised to obscure his face in an introspective gesture. Jasper Johns was not only inspired by the scenery but also by the damages the image had suffered over the years. In the following months, the image became the starting point for his Regrets-series, where he takes the image through a succession of numerous permutations. The Regrets series takes the image of Freud through a succession of cross-medium permutations, including small pencil sketches, a set of four ink-on-plastic drawings, and two prints, each presented along with a variety of preliminary states. But Johns not only incorporated the photograph of Freud into his work (most often doubled by its mirrored image), but also the physical qualities of the original black-and-white print, which Freud had extensively torn and creased in the course of his studio practice. A loss on the original photograph, for example, plays a prominent role in the composition throughout the series, creating a dominant dark form in the center foreground. A large-scale watercolor, also titled Regrets, obscures the image nearly into abstraction, exploring the theme in yet another way. This series lays bare the importance of process and experimentation, the cycle of dead ends and fresh starts, and the incessant interplay of materials, significant opportunity to see one of his most important series of contemporary works. Having emerged as a leading voice in American art in the late-1950s with paintings of iconic motifs such as flags, targets, and numbers, Johns has since developed a body of work of extraordinary narrative complexity and technical virtuosity. During his career, Johns has created some of the most important and compelling works of modern times. Jasper Johns: Regrets is organized by Christophe Cherix, Ann Temkin, and Ingrid Langston. The Belvedere is the third iteration of Jasper Johns: Regrets parts of it were presented at the Courtauld Gallery in London - and is the first major solo exhibition in Vienna since his retrospective of prints at the Vienna Secession in 1987. Regrets will open on 12 January 2015 and run through 26 April. This exhibition is based upon one originally organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York
EUROPE IN VIENNA The Congress of Vienna 1814/15 Lower Belvedere and Orangery 20 February to 21 June 2015
The Congress of Vienna is one of the most important international mega events in European history. Two months. The Congress was hosted by Emperor Francis I of Austria. All of the major European powers sent their delegates in order to confer about how to reorganise the continent, which had lost its stability during the Napoleonic Wars. Austria was represented by the Prince of Metternich, who also functioned as the president of the Congress. The declared goal was to achieve peace in Europe through a balance of powers and thus secure order on a long-term basis. The diplomatic negotiations were accompanied by a number of social events and entertainments, the enormous splendour of which has been captured in numerous written and pictorial documents. In those days, Vienna was flourishing as a centre of cultural life, with many artists coming to the imperial city and inspiring all genres of domestic art production. EUROPE IN VIENNA. The Congress of Vienna 1814/15 will be on view at the Lower Belvedere and the Orangery from 20 February to 21 June 2015. The comprehensive exhibition will highlight both the political and social aspects of this extraordinary event, which kept all Europe on tenterhooks over several months. There is hardly another political, diplomatic and social event of the nineteenth century that was documented by such a great diversity of materials like the Congress of Vienna, which turned the metropolis on the River Danube into the hotspot of Europe for a brief period of time. Preparing the objects for the exhibition confronted the curators Sabine Grabner and Werner Telesko with the challenge of vividly presenting a diplomatic and historical process that is mainly perceived as a social event. The exhibits range from reportage prints and caricatures to history paintings and portraits in various dimensions and media from miniature to sculpture and life-sized oil paintings. The scope of the Congress of Vienna as a phenomenon of social and artistic ramifications is to be displayed in the form of masterpieces from all genres. The thematic spectrum will take into account both the exciting chronology of events from the European Wars of Liberation and the occupation of Vienna in 1805 and 1809 to the Battle of Leipzig of 1813 and an adequate consideration of their protagonists, who came from the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie alike. All in all, the Congress proved a remarkable political success. The borderlines between the individual European powers were redefined on a long-term basis. Especially the power equilibrium that had been reached in Vienna had a far-reaching impact on the entire continent. Peaceful negotiations helped settle a number of conflicting interests and tensions. For almost forty years, no further martial conflicts occurred on a European level, due to the stability that had been brought about. Initially, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Great Britain had decided that France, Spain, and the lesser powers should not have a voice in the decision processes. Yet the experienced French diplomat Charles- Maurice de Talleyrand eventually succeeded in getting France to participate in the deliberations of the major powers. This is how the French nobleman Charles Joseph de Ligne welcomed Count Auguste de La Garde, one of the famous confirmed by many contemporary sources. Thanks to its telling combination of Europe and Vienna, this
CURRENTLY RESTORED Fragment of the Lenten Veil by Thomas of Villach Medieval Treasury Study Collection in the Palace Stables 6 March to 25 May 2015
Since 2009, the collection of medieval art at the Belvedere has been enriched by a precious textile. This en veil. CURRENTLY RESTORED: Fragment of the Lenten Veil by Thomas of Villach can be seen at the Medieval Treasury in the Palace Stables at the Lower Belvedere from 6 March to 25 May 2015. It depicts scenes from the Old Testament: the Gathering of Manna, Moses Drawing Water from the Rock, the Brazen Serpent, the Dance around the Golden Calf, Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Law, and Moses Punishing the Israelites. Lenten veils have been documented for over a thousand years. During the forty days of Lent before Easter they were used to veil choirs, altarpieces, crosses or devotional images. In Central Europe, however, painted examples first appear in the early fifteenth century, and these were to be found especially in the region of the Alps. This fragment can be dated around 1470 80 and belongs to this tradition. This sensational discovery was made in 2008 when the art collection at the castle Frey Schlössl on the Mönchsberg in Salzburg was broken up. The businessman, amateur photographer, and collector Carl von Frey (1826 1896) had furnished and decorated his Neo-Gothic summer residence with medieval artworks and furniture. The Frey collection was not completely documented in the took so long for the veil to be discovered. This piece must originate from a Lenten veil with abundant images, probably depicting the History of Salvation from the Creation to the Last Judgement. These series of images, including comparable scenes from the story of Moses, can also be found on the few surviving Gothic Lenten veils in Gurk, Zittau in Saxony, St. Lambrecht in Styria, and Haimburg in Carinthia. The oldest and largest of these is the Gurk Lenten veil of 1458, comprising ninety-nine images and covering a total area of c. 890 x 890 cm. The impressive effect of this vast veil can be experienced to this day at Gurk Cathedral, where it forms a visual barrier to the high altarpiece from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. This fragment from the Frey Collection is possibly the remains of a similarly vast Lenten veil from a large church in Carinthia, although there is no way of finding out where it was once displayed. Lenten veils have been documented in many places and in many different manifestations for over a thousand years. Originally made of plain white or grey linen, as the custom spread, painted textiles followed by Lenten veils with pictures started appearing. When it was purchased, the damaged and faded veil was contaminated with the spores of dry rot; leading institutions for historical textiles, took in the imperilled object for examination and restoration work. Non-invasive methods were first used to examine the Lenten veil fragment. Radiodiagnostic procedures, such as infrared reflectography and ultraviolet photography, emphasized contrasts, highlighted differences in material, and pinpointed damage. For example, in the scene of the Brazen Serpent, trac Further important information was subsequently gained through invasive analyses of material samples. These processes have revealed microbial infestation and also detected the original colour pigments on the extremely faded cloth. Appropriately this work, now fortunately saved from deterioration, is being CURRENTLY RESTORED. The show is accompanied by a publication compiled in collaboration with the Abegg Foundation. We would like to thank the Abegg Foundation for its support and for the great dedication of all the conservators involved in this project.
Masterpieces in Focus: Friedrich Loos An Artist‘s Life between Vienna, Rome and the North Upper Belvedere 27 March to 12 July 2015
From 27 March, the Belvedere is devoting a Masterpieces in Focus exhibition to an unjustly forgotten Austrian painter Friedrich Loos (1797 1890). It is the first solo show to be dedi painted some of his most well-known works, Loos moved to Vienna and then to Rome in 1846. In Italy he continued to paint panoramas. He captured the city from Monte Celio and Monte Mario in two sequences of five paintings, creating vast panoramic views of classical and of contemporary Rome. In his cityscapes and landscapes depicting the Alps or rolling countryside, Friedrich Loos always made every effort to record exact topographies. Yet capturing atmosphere was equally important to him and this infuses his pictures with a special appeal that still enchants visitors today. Like many landscape painters in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Loos led a very itinerant lifestyle. Born in Graz in 1797, he came to Vienna at a young age. While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, several weeks in the region of the Schneeberg mountain during the autumn of 1817 made a strong impression on the young artist. Instructed by Joseph Mössmer, the students spent their time here drawing in the open air. A few years later Loos enjoyed his first successes as an artist, although this was in the field of graphic art not started dabbling in oil painting. This became his passion although graphic art always remained an important mainstay in his work. In 1820 Loos made his first contribution of two etchings to an exhibition at the Vienna academy. In 1821 Friedrich Loos sold a printing plate to fund a walking tour through the Austrian Alps. On his return he continued working mainly as a graphic artist and also as a drawing teacher. In 1825/26 he worked for the art collector Maximilian Speck von Sternburg in Leipzig. Loos later returned to Vienna via Dresden and Prague, soon moving on to Salzburg where he achieved his breakthrough as a landscapist over the following years. He met Johann Michael Sattler and became his main collaborator on his famous panorama of Salzburg. By this time, Loos was a fully fledged realistic landscape painter, so he was virtually predestined to paint the landscape passages in th this panorama of Salzburg. In 1835 Friedrich Loos moved back to Vienna with his wife Juliane, whom he had married in Salzburg three years before. Friedrich Loos continued to exhibit at the Vienna academy
Neusiedl, Styria, and Istria, among other destinations. Loos and his wife then settled in Klosterneuburg, later moving to Rome in 1846. By this time, Loos was almost fifty and could look back on an impressive oeuvre of paintings and prints. Various factors inspired him to go south. Firstly, he wanted to meet the much-esteemed older landscapist Johann Christian Reinhart (1761 1847) in person, and secondly he aimed to expand his subject matter and appeal to new buyers. His two Rome panoramas were the most significant works from his years in Rome and he painted them around 1850. Loos subsequently showed these in cities in northern Germany and Scandinavia including Düsseldorf, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Oslo. In November 1855, Loos and his wife finally settled in Kiel. The painter embarked on his last great journey to Norway in 1856 from here. This was followed by walking tours in the hilly region of eastern Holstein (so-called Holstein Switzerland) almost every year, an area Loos and other artists helped to explore, and also to Sylt in the North Sea and the bathing resort Sankt Peter-Ording. Loos continued travelling until the early 1880s. Friedrich Loos died on 9 May 1890 in Kiel. The exhibition Masterpieces in Focus: Friedrich Loos features euvre and invites visitors to rediscover Friedrich Loos and see his work in a new light.
Exhibitions held within the series Masterpieces in Focus are made possible through the generous support of the Dorotheum.
Franz West - Room in Vienna Belvedere Gardens Since April 2015
-in sculptural landscape Room in Vienna is now on show at the forms made of aluminium the highest point reaching 5 meters and invites visitors to occupy his installation by standing, sitting or lying on it. The different reactions of the visitors for Franz West are necessary, integral parts of the installation through which the meaning of the work is constantly changing. Communication and interaction with and through art are the basic topics of his works. By integrating the concepts of alienation and irony, he specifically addresses the question where the line can be drawn between art object and utilitarian object. With his work, West permanently varies and interprets the idea of environment and in this way explores the changing spatial and contextual functions of sculpture. His universe of associations unites psychoanalytical and philosophical topics with cross- border walks between art and design. Even though West incorporates almost all types of media and artistic genres, the continuous work on sculpture and the manual modelling as well as the focus of relational human measures remain t process remains the philosophical charging of his work from the outside, as well as the use of everyday fabrics and the expressive use of colour.
Ernesto Neto - O tempo lento do corpo que é pele Upper Belvedere, Marble Hall 23 June to 31 August 2015
O tempo lento do corpo que é pele (The Slow Pace of the Body That Is Skin) is an amorphous sculpture woven in Brazil from red and sandy strips of rubbery fabric in a traditional weaving technique called swelling out of its surface. The title makes reference to the skin, the cell, the architectural membrane and the soft silhouette of an animal an relationship between body and space, the inside and the outside. This fantastic landscape is imbued with the aroma of spices turmeric, cloves, pepper, and cumin regular olfactory ingredients of his works and directs our attention from the visual to the sensual and haptic, from sculpture to environment.
Klimt and the Ringstrasse A Showcase of Grandeur Lower Belvedere 3 July to 11 October 2015
, which took more than half a century, is considered a tour de force of urban planning. In the wake of the booming Gründerzeit years of the nineteenth century, a tiful boulevard. 150 years ago, on 1 May 1865, Emperor Francis Joseph officially inaugurated the Ringstraße. On the occasion of its anniversary, the Belvedere dedicates the exhibition Klimt and the Ringstraße to the
charismatic Ringstraße painters, who had a great impact on their time. The show spans from the oeuvre around Gustav Klimt, the so- - he splendid lifestyle of the Ringstraße era. In addition to a number of sensual and narrative masterpieces, the exhibition also includes little-known works by the young Klimt. most influential and outstanding architectural ensembles forms an essential part of the historic centre of Vienna, now a World Cultural Heritage site. In the late nineteenth century, the boulevard lent expression identified the latter as one of the great political powers on the European continent. Building activities started in the 1860s and were only about to be completed when World War I broke out in 1914. With the Ringstraße, Vienna also presented itself as a new and dynamic centre of business and commerce. A mirror of the medieval town of patricians to a modern industrial metropolis. The dual function of culture a symbol of political authority in the case of the imperial court and a sign of economic power in case of the upper classes buildings may be understood as expressions of different cultural self-concepts. The exhibition Klimt and the Ringstraße sheds light on the art of the Ringstraße period, its collectors, and their collections. Whereas the individual aspects of painting, sculpture, and architecture have previously mostly been examined within isolated scientific studies, the show at the Lower Belvedere seeks to re-establish the connection between the Ringstraße and its collectors and patrons. Images of interiors of public buildings and private residences enable us to compare divergent artistic positions and trace stylistic differences and continuities. The show presents examples of the history painting practiced by Carl Rahl and his school, works by the colour magician Hans Makart, and the early output of Gustav Klimt, then a young held on the occasion fifty years. This period of a rapid industrial growth that affected all spheres of life be it economics, politics, society, or the arts was eventually marked by constant change, discrepancy, and continuity. The exhibition will comprise painted decoration for the Burgtheater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, designs for the -Compagnie, as well as furniture formerly owned by Makart. Moreover, the show will present objects once in the possession of such patrons as Friedrich von Leitenberger and Nikolaus Dumba and treasures from the collections of the Bloch-Bauer family and will provide a nuanced and multifaceted perspective of an epoch whose means of industrial production and reproduction surpassed the possibilities of manual production by far and which went in search of a new canon of artistic values.
The Ploner Collection Orangery 8 July to 27 September 2015
Mit der Ausstellung Selbstverständlich Malerei! würdigt das Belvedere die großzügige Schenkung Regina Ploners an das Museum, die zu einer der größten seit seinem Bestehen zählt. Im Bereich der Kunst der 1960er- bis 2000er-Jahre, stellen die 108 Werke, die dem Belvedere vermacht wurden eine signifikante Bereicherung der Sammlung zur Malerei nach 1945 mit Schwerpunkt auf der Zeit von den 1990er-Jahren bis in die Gegenwart dar. Der Sammler Heinz Ploner (1952-2011) verbrachte fast zwanzig Jahre seines Lebens damit, sich mit zeitgenössischer Malerei auseinanderzusetzen und die Malerei selbst sowie ihre
Entwicklung zu hinterfragen. Im Jahr 2014 ging durch die Initiative seiner Witwe ein großer Teil der Sammlung an die Albertina, das Belvedere und die Neue Galerie Graz, um diese außergewöhnliche Werkschau der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen. Der von allen drei Häusern gemeinsam publizierte Katalog zeigt die Sammlung in ihrer Gesamtheit und erinnert an Heinz Ploner als einen leidenschaftlichen Sammler und großen Kunst- und Künstlerfreund. Die intensive Auseinandersetzung und die bewusste Sammlungstätigkeit begannen 1997, nachdem Heinz Ploner beruflichen Erfolg als Wirtschaftsfachmann hatte. Seine anfängliche Ausrichtung auf die sogenannte Neue Malerei in Österreich umfasste u. a. die großen Werkgruppen von Herbert Brandl, Gunter Damisch, Hubert Scheibl und Otto Zitko. Sie bilden gemeinsam mit Erwin Bohatschs lyrischen Abstraktionsbildern einen Schwerpunkt der Sammlung. Im Zuge der raschen inhaltlichen Erweiterung seines Kunstverständnisses öffnete sich Heinz Ploner auch einem avancierten Malereidiskurs, der mit Neuen Medien experimentierte und nahm damit Werke von Markus Huemer, Gerwald Rockenschaub und Lois Renner in seine Kollektion mit auf. Seit 2006 sind unter der Direktion von Agnes Husslein-Arco durch Ankäufe, Schenkungen und Dauerleihgaben einige Positionen jener Malerei der 1980er- und 1990er-Jahre in den Bestand des Belvedere gelangt, die zuvor überhaupt nicht oder nur unwesentlich in der Sammlung vertreten waren. Jene 108 Kunstwerke, vornehmlich aus der Gattung der Malerei, aber auch Fotografie und Installation, komplettieren und erweitern den Bestand des Belvedere. Anhand von 43 Werken aus der umfassenden Schenkung zeichnet Kurator Harald Krejci Heinz Ploners künstlerischen Zugang und seine Sammelleidenschaft, die ebenso Malerei wie auch Fotografie und multimediale Kunst umfasste, nach. Ploners Zugang zu Werken der bildenden Kunst war anfänglich ein rein intuitiver und emotionaler, die ersten Ankäufe ergaben sich bei Atelierbesuchen und vielen freundschaftlichen Kontakten zu Künstlern. Die Initialzündung für die Sammlungstätigkeit ereignete sich während eines Atelierbesuchs bei Josef Mikl. Ab diesem Zeitpunkt ließ ihn die Faszination für die abstrakte Malerei nicht mehr los. Im weiteren Verlauf erfolgte eine Ausrichtung auf die sogenannte Neue Malerei in Österreich, wobei wichtige Repräsentanten der österreichischen ungegenständlichen Malerei und internationale Impulsgeber diesen Themenkreis unterschiedlich veranschaulichen. Seine Beschäftigung mit Künstlern setzte er solange fort, bis sich ihm die jeweiligen Werke, die oft zu Werkblöcken anwuchsen, erschlossen hatten. Harald Krejci spiegelt die Entwicklung des Sammlerblicks in der Dramaturgie der Ausstellung wider: Der Bogen spannt sich von der abstrakten Malerei der 1960er Jahre (Josef Mikl und Henri Michaux) über Werke der Neuen Malerei der 1990er-Jahre bis zu konzeptuellen, postmodernen Foto- und Filmarbeiten und installativen Werken. Der Besucher beginnt mit der Malerei der sogenannten Neuen Wilden, die sich Ende des letzten Jahrhunderts erneut den Fragen nach den Gattungsgrenzen von Malerei widmeten und Reflexionen über das Medium Malerei wieder neu eröffneten. Mit großformatigen Bildern sind die Richtungsvertreter Herbert Brandl, Erwin Bohatsch, Gunter Damisch und Hubert Scheibl in der Ausstellung vertreten und schließen mit ihren Werkblöcken die bisherigen Sammlungslücken des Belvedere. Mit Gerwald Rockenschaub, Florian Pumhösl und Jörg Sasse führt die Schau über deren konzeptuelle Fotoarbeiten weiter zu einer multimedialen Installation von Markus Huemer. Um auch der jüngsten zeitgenössischen Kunst Rechnung zu tragen, führte Heinz Ploner das Sammlungskonzept fort und erweiterte seine Sammlung um Künstler wie Adrian Schiess, Maya Vukoje, Zenita Komad, Erwin Wurm und Edgar Honetschläger. Letzterer regt mit seinem am Eingang der Ausstellung die Besucher empfangenden Film Chicken Suit einen Diskurs über Kunst, Malerei und in diesem Fall auch über das Medium Film als Grundlage des künstlerischen Handelns an. Mehr als zwei Jahre nach dem frühen Tod ihres Mannes war es Regina Ploner möglich, sich mit der Sammlung ihres Mannes auseinanderzusetzen. Mit der Sammlungsbetreuerin Angelika Rossmaier entstand der Plan, die Sammlung, im Sinne ihres Gründers, österreichischen Museen zu übergeben
A Hommage to Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller On the 150th anniversary of his death Upper Belvedere 17 July to 26 October 2015
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793 1865) is considered the most important Austrian artist of the 19th century. On the one hand, he produced outstanding works in the artistic disciplines prevalent at the time portraiture, landscape, still life, and genre painting and, on the other hand, he was always, throughout his life, in search of accomplishment, striding new paths that led the way into the future. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death on 23 August, the Upper Belvedere honours this most prominent painter of the
. Yet through his advocacy of the study of nature and painting en plein air, he pointed the way into the future. Frequently misunderstood as a painter of Biedermeier idylls, Waldmüller, like most of his Austrian contemporaries, had attended the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and modelled his painting technique on that of the Old
Academy himself, he postulated that the education it offered was inefficient and that two-year master courses would suffice to recognise talent and train young artists. The funds thus set free, he thought, revolutionary of art. He harked back to tradition and simultaneously demanded the abolition of the academies. In this he was similarly radical as the composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who in the 1960s about 100 years after Waldmüller demanded the closure of opera houses in order to make r -Arco, Director of the Belvedere and 21er Haus. With
Biedermeier period. If his painting initially still betrayed Neo-Classicist traits, it became increasingly
Friedrich, but interpreted natural phenomena by no means religiously. As one of the major practitioners of a meticulous description of reality, he focused on light as the central subject of his late work. By the end of his life, Historicism had overtaken Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and his art. In 1865, the year of his death, the Ringstraße was opened, with buildings along the boulevard erected in the Historicist style and their interiors decorated accordingly. As a parallel development, a new type of landscape painting . After his death, Waldmüller fell into oblivion for several decades. Yet the interest in his art was revived around 1900, when the Secessionists recognised him as a precursor and pioneer of their approach to art, as he had similarly regarded outdoor paint expression through the study of nature the primary tasks of painting. In the 1903 catalogue of the open- reover, they held him in high esteem for his unconventional attitude towards the Academy and his plea to purchase works by young artists. Starting in 1898, works by Waldmüller were regularly acquired for the Modern Gallery at the Lower Belvedere. When the Imperial Picture Gallery and the Austrian State Gallery merged in 1921, twelve pictures by the
st, which is now held by the Belvedere, is the result of
Centre is based on research conducted by Bruno Grimschitz and Rupert Feuchtmüller. In 1957, Bruno Grimschitz published his Waldmüller monograph, including a catalogue raisonné. Relying on this
thankfully left his comprehensive archive to the Belvedere. The Waldmüller Archive is attended to by Sabine Grabner, curator of 19th-century painting.
More than ZERO Hans BISCHOFFSHAUSEN Orangery 8 October 2015 to 14 February 2016
The painter Hans Bischoffshausen, born in 1927 in Feld am See in Carinthia, is among the major representatives of the Austrian post-war avant-garde of the 1950s and '60s. He had already developed his reduced, material-oriented style - which sounds out the limits of painting - very early on, in connection with his travels to Italy and France. Exhibitions in the galleries of Venice and Milan laid the foundations for art that repeatedly felt out the limits of painting. Whereas his work was initially still characterised by gestic abstract painting, he found a new use of forms with materials such as sand, cement, punched holes and burn marks, which dealt with the relationships between writing and image. His encounter with the Parisian ZERO movement enabled Bischoffshausen to have his first experiences of monochromy. ZERO's strivings had as their aim a new beginning in art, unburdened by the war period. Under the slogan "postwar zero hour" the representatives of this movement expressed themselves in a purism concentrating on clarity and purity of colour. Bischoffshausen's monochrome structural pictures are the expression of his intensive examination of the subject of silence, through which he tried to understand the world as it really is. In the first exhibition of Bischoffshausen by a Viennese state museum, the Belvedere honoured the artist under the title More than ZERO Hans BISCHOFFSHAUSEN. The show at the Orangery is not limiting itself to Bischoffshausen's ZERO period, but is also presenting the artist, writer, essayist and cultural critic, who after his stay in Paris committed himself to critical art and was very active in cultural politics. The exhibition is on the one hand devoted to the literary writings, the art- theoretical treatises, the advanced art-in-architecture projects and the main artistic works of this multi- talent and on the other hand brings groups of works by Bischoffshausen together again for the first time and shows the artistic interrelationships with fellow painters from France, Germany, Italy and Holland. His friendship with the Italian avant-garde artist Lucio Fontana, who became world-famous due to his cut-off pictures, broadened Bischoffshausen's work concept, upon which he worked consistently after moving to Paris in 1959. Bischoffshausen quickly found his way into the French artists' scene. The fine artist and ZERO-representative Bernard Aubertin became an important companion. Between 1962 and 1965 Bischoffshausen's career intensified, resulting in exhibitions in France and Germany and inclusion in exhibitions in Italy. Contact to the international artists' group NUL, centring around Jan Schoonhoven, also made it possible for him to succeed as an artist in Holland. His friendships with Herman de Vries and Heinz Mack are subjects of the exhibition. More than ZERO is also based upon the telling of the story of the friendship and advisory cooperation between Hans Bischoffshausen and the galley-owning couple Heide and Ernst Hildebrand. More than 250 documents, such as letters, photos and exhibition folders bear witness to the gallery's close relationship with the artist. The reworking of the comprehensive archive of Ernst Hildebrand is the basis of the publication appearing for the exhibition and thus part of the ongoing research at the Belvedere into the art of the post-war period. In 1961, Heide and Ernst Hildebrand opened the Galerie Wulfengasse 14 in Klagefurt, one of the first art locations in Austria that showed avant-garde art. The married couple had got to know Hans Bischoffshausen, who gave the gallery opening orientation with his works - in 1957 at his first solo exhibition at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice. Back then there were hardly any Austrian galleries showing the ZERO artists. The exhibition at the Belvedere is therefore presenting important artists exhibited by the gallery back then and with whom Bischoffshausen and the Hildebrand couple were closely connected. These include Lucio Fontana, Yves
Klein, Piero Manzoni, Jan Schoonhoven, Henk Peeters, Herrman des Vries and Bernard Aubertin. A commission for a thirty metre long relief frieze in the then new building of the Surgery Department of the Klagenfurt State Hospital, which the architect Ernst Hildebrand awarded to Bischoffshausen in 1961, was also created in the course of this cooperation. This piece, which consists of twelve panels and is the largest of Bischoffshausen's works in terms of its dimensions, is entitled and was removed for restoration in 2001. It was not made accessible again until 2010 in the foyer of Klagenfurt's new hospital.
The Women of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka Lower Belvedere 22 October 2015 to 28 February 2016
Around the turn of the twentieth century, the traditional relationship between the sexes was challenged by a series of sweeping social, economic and philosophical changes. The incipient move toward gender parity provoked vehement counter-arguments on the part of popular theorists such as Otto Weininger. On the other hand, to the extent that both men and women wished to escape from the confining moral taboos of the nineteenth century, sexual liberation may be viewed as a shared goal. The more forthright acknowledgment of male and female sexual desire sent thrills and chills through early twentieth-century
Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka each approached what was then commonly known as the The Women of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka explores these differences and similarities in depth, in the process providing new insights into early twentieth-century gender relations and the origins of modern sexual identity. Organized both chronologically and thematically, the exhibition focuses on four principal subject groupings: portraiture; mothers and children; couples; the nu portraits sumptuous, elegant and brilliantly colored were popular with Viennese society ladies. But the
Kokoschka turned this decorative formula inside out, thrusting their subjects into a pictorial void. In the horror vacui. Defying the then-prevalent contention that women lack souls, Schiele and Kokoschka forged a new, modern form of psychological portraiture. The mother and child, one of the oldest subjects in Western religious art, was likewise transformed by the pressures of fin-de-siècle sexual politics. In the
(sexually voracious predators). Klimt and Schiele subverted this dichotomy by depicting pregnant nudes and naked mothers, thereby explicitly linking motherhood to female sexuality. Kokoschka, on the other about fathering a child with his lover, Alma Mahler, and in his art repeatedly allegorized her as the Virgin Mary. Judging from their work, Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka shared a belief in romantic love: a union of soul-mates sealed by erotic passion. But whereas Klimt, in his paintings of couples, placed the subject on a lofty allegorical plane, the two Expressionists allowed personal experiences to inflect their work. compelling than their renderings of idealized, happy lovers. Because males and females were at the time deemed opposites, the two could not be comfortably joined. Traditionally, the goal of the female nude in and idealization. At the beginning of the concept of the femme fatale he primacy of the male
more abrasive. Angular lines subvert their inviting curves, and erratic cropping creates an aura of unease. Unlike classical nudes, these women often seem aware that they are being watched, and at times they depicting recumbent women vertically, fostering a sense of confrontational engagement entirely at odds with the aesthetics of the not be accurate to call any of these artists feminists. Nevertheless, all three acknowledged female sexual autonomy to a degree that was at the time unprecedented.
Masterpieces in Focus Gerhard Frankl - Restless Upper Belvedere 18 November 2015 to 3 April 2016
Although Frankl is not unknown in Austrian modernism and, due to his stays with Anton Kolig in Carinthia tradition and a modern approach, has not yet been duly recognised. Frankl, an avowed admirer of Cézanne and sensitive artist constantly plagued by doubt, went in a restless search of formal innovation. -taught artist, who developed is work independently, is marked by numerous stylistic shifts. Restrained Expressionist solutions exist side by side with nervous and more liberal ones; art culminated in his form-dissolving, immaterial works devoted to Alpine subject matter. Exhibitions within the series Masterpieces in Focus generous support.
Belvedere Christmas Tree 2015 Manfred Erjautz - Under the Weight of Light Upper Belvedere 28 November 2015 to 2 February 2016
The series Belvedere Christmas Tree -meter-high flesh-colored sculpture Happy Holidays, positioned like a fifth column between the atlantes in the Sala Hang in Tree, suspended undecorated from the ceiling and reflected in a
dimensions. It comprised an oversized black Christmas bauble with a shiny surface that not only reflected the Baroque Sala terrena but also the museum visitors. An installation in the form of a playable sound object was presented by Constantin Luser in 2013. One year later Verena Dengler created an opulent blue spruce, whose decoration combined Jewish, Pan-African and Christian symbols. In 2015 the Belvedere is now presenting the installation Under the Weight of Light by Manfred Erjautz. The installation by the artist, who was born in Graz in 1966, uniquely complements the space in the High Baroque Sala Terrena. At the same time, this translucent work evokes the original intention to use light as a key element in discourse with the real weight of the sculpture composed of moisture-proof battens, fluorescent tubes, electric cables, and ropes. In this conceptual work by Manfred Erjautz, the merging of secular and religious significance that characterizes Christmas plays a central role.
MASTERPIECES IN FOCUS Exhibition series
In line with the central responsibilities and strengths of a museum preserving, presenting, and expanding its collection as well as conveying information about it the Belvedere has been presenting its exhibition series Masterpieces in Focus since 2009. Twice a year, it highlights special aspects of Austrian art history, thereby concentrating on certain themes, individual artists, or exceptional masterpieces from the collection. Integrated into the permanent collection of the Upper Belvedere, yet set apart from it through the exhibition architecture, these presentations focus on the significance of selected works of art in the context of both the collection as such and the art and culture of the time when they were created. With its cross-disciplinary analyses and based on latest research findings, the series of books published within the framework of these shows offers new perspectives of the works of art on display.
INTERVENTION Exhibition series
In the exhibition series Intervention, launched in 2007, the Belvedere regularly invites Austrian and international artists to create site- collections, and history. Interventions by Marianna Gartner, Susan Hefuna, Christian Hutzinger, Werner Reiterer, Karen Kilimnik, Marco Lulic, Gudrun Kampl, Brigitte Kowanz, Franz Kapfer, Tillman Kaiser, Lisa Oppenheim, Agnieszka Polska, Gerold Tusch and Christian Mayer have been presented so far.
Winter Palace
Martin van Meytens the Younger Winter Palace 18 October 2014 to 15 February 2015
In Martin van Meytens the Younger (1695 1770) the Belvedere is going to feature one of the most outstanding European painters of the Baroque age. As a favourite portraitist of the Austrian imperial dynasty under Maria Theresa, Meytens impressively captured influential personalities of contemporary intellectual, artistic, and political life. In the Baroque ambience of the Winter Palace, the Belvedere will be presenting a monographic exhibition devoted to the oeuvre of this artist. Of Dutch origin and born in Sweden, Martin van Meytens the Younger developed his unmistakable hand during diverse sojourns in France, England, and Italy. His style, which borrowed from various European models, was later successfully passed on to his numerous students. Originally trained as a miniaturist, Meytens perfected monumental painting over the years while always remaining true to portraiture, apart from a few forays into other figural genres. His fascinating portraiture and the art of his most important students, including Joseph Hickel, will be in the focus of this exhibition. Martin van Meytens the Younger was born in Stockholm in 1695 the son of Martin Mijtens the Elder (1648 1736), who was also active as a portraitist. His parents, who originally came from Holland, had emigrated to Sweden. Having first been trained by his father, the younger Meytens embarked on a study tour of several years as early as 1714, which led him
Meytens cannot be assigned to any particular painting tradition, such as the Swedish, French, or Roman school. His personal style, which is characterised by precise drawing and partly intensive colours, is much too distinctive for that. Having been highly interested in alchemy and physics, he immersed himself in the development of his own materials, i.e., paints, apart from his art, receiving a patent from the imperial government for the production of mineral paints in 1743. Moreover, Martin Meytens the Younger is said to have commanded several languages, so that he can probably be most fittingly described as a European citizen.
Vienna for Art’s Sake! Contemporary Art Show Winter Palace 27 February to 31 May 2015
For three months, the exhibition will contrast contemporary art with the splendid -maker Peter Noever invited thirteen contemporary artists to enter into a dialogue with thirteen Baroque rooms at the Winter Palace. The starting point for the show was Imago Mundi. A collector and connoisseur of contemporary art, this prominent Italian fashion magnate and president of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, has been inviting established and emerging artists all over the world to explore in their art a canvas in a postcard format of 10 by 12 cm. Currently, Benetton can boast over 10,000 works from 60 countries in his ever- growing inventory of contemporary art. In contrast to Imago Mundi opened up Archive Austria not only to artists but also to architects and designers who live and work in Vienna or who have left behind an important contribution to the city, regardless of their geographic origins or nationality. The 161 works from Archive Austria will be presented in the Primary Exhibition in
the Sala Terrena at the Winter Palace from 27 February to 31 May 2015. The thirteen artists from Archive Austria, who were selected to create installations in thirteen rooms of the state apartment, explore the significance of contemporary artistic production and visualize the unbroken force of thinkers and visionaries. On display are installations by Vito + Maria Elena Acconci, Zaha Hadid, Magdalena Jetelová, Michael Kienzer, Hans Kupelwieser, the next ENTERprise, Hermann Nitsch, Eva Schlegel, Kiki Smith, Iv Toshain, Atelier Van Lieshout, Koen Vanmechelen, and Manfred Wakolbinger. The exhibition in Vienna is the first to present on a large scale the stature of the artist personalities behind the postcard format of 10 by 12 cm. Painters, architects, designers, and Conceptual artists faced the challenge of visualizing their artworks in an unusually small format. Peter Noever then invited artists to nominate other artists, architects, and designers, thus questioning prevailing curatorial practice.After Looking Eastward (Russia), Snapshot Romania (Romania), and Iceland/Boiling Ice (Iceland), is the fourth European collection of Imago Mundi Imago Mundi rests on a philanthropic approach and aims to display the maximum number of artistic positions and artists in the widest and most representative contexts possible. It was important for Luciano Benetton, who appreciates Austria for its tradition in the arts, to entrust Peter Noever with the compilation of the Austrian contribution to the Luciano Benetton Collection. says Peter Noever about their collaboration. Artists, architects, and designers who live and/or work in Vienna or have left behind a significant contribution were invited to participate in and declared themselves prepared to accept the challenge of working with the small format of 10 by 12 cm. Artists nominating artists: this process also lends itself to questioning the prevailing understanding of curatorial work. The 161 works demonstrate multiple microcosms in their own right. Three artists who had agreed to supply works died during the preparations of : Johann Georg Gsteu was able to complete his work. Alfons Schilling and Otto Muehl passed away before they could hand in their works. They will be honoured with a white canvas in the 400-page catalogue.
Rembrandt - Titian - Bellotto Spirit and Splendour of the Dresden Picture Gallery Winter Palace 11 June to 8 November 2015
The exhibition Rembrandt - Titian - Bellotto: Spirit and Splendour of the Dresden Picture Gallery at the Winter Palace will showcase approximately one hundred masterpieces by famous artists including Rembrandt, Titian, Bernardo Bellotto, Guido Reni, Anthony van Dyck, and Antoine Watteau. The foundation and development of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie [Picture Gallery] in the eighteenth century will be divided into seven chapters, tracing its evolution into a centre of education and exchange between artists and art historians. Important history paintings, landscapes, still lifes, and portraits clearly convey the prestige of this royal collection. And they also shed light on the collecting practices of the reigns marked an economic and cultural heyday that has been dubbed the Augustan Age, a time when many buildings and the royal collect Picture Gallery dates back to the days of Augustus the Strong. The outstanding quality of this collection is largely thanks to the efforts of art experts and agents, who assembled a large gallery of international acclaim. In addition, important artists like Bernardo Bellotto, were called to the court of Saxony,
The Belvedere is showing the exhibition Rembrandt - Titian - Bellotto: Spirit and Splendour of the Dresden Picture Gallery at the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene, who was amassing his treasures from many
different countries at the same time as Augustus II and Augustus III. The exhibition will therefore transform the Winter Palace into an encounter between international art connoisseurs from the Baroque
Sistine Madonna Girl Reading a Letter, and the long history of the gallery that was already in its prime during the Baroque era. In 2013 a renovation programme was launched in the gallery space designed by architect Gottfried Semper, thus opening the door for about one hundred treasures to go on tour and convey a compelling impression of this collection and its history. The collection of paintings belonging to the electors of Saxony can be traced back to the Renaissance, but it was under Augustus the Strong (1670 1733) and especially his son Augustus III (1696 1763) that the Gemäldegalerie truly flourished. They acquired paintings by masters from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries through middlemen based in different countries. In around 1745, for example, they were admired for their purchase of one hundred works from the Duke of Modena, Francesco III. To convey a complete picture, it needs to be mentioned that their collecting was not confined to paintings but they also acquired Kunstkammer artworks (consider the treasures in the famous Grünes Gewölbe!), sculptures, and antiquities. The latter demonstrates an important connection with Prince Eugene, whose former Winter Palace is the exhibition venue. Soon after the famous Herculaneum Women from his heir. This ardent art connoisseur evidently knew only too well where desirable art treasures were to be found. The exhibition examines different subjects in order to explore the Dresden Gallery from various angles. These include the Saxon court as a hub of art and patronage, the importance of the Dresden art academy, and a focus on genres such as portrait, landscape, and still life. One During his Dresden years he would have witnessed its constant expansion and changing presentations. A selection of important works that Winckelmann could have seen on his many visits to the gallery will also be on Portrait of a Lady in White (Girl with Fan Ganymede in the Talons of the Eagle. One of the objects in the exhibition is a Southern Landscape with Waterfall and this is of particular interest concerning the links between Dresden and Vienna. It is by the painter Joseph Roos (1726 1805), who was from a widely spread artist family. Born in Vienna, he moved to Dresden early in his career where he later became court painter and ultimately even academy professor. He had become a member of the academy in 1764 and this required him to present a reception piece as was usual in Vienna as well. It was not until 1780, following many promptings, that he finally submitted a painting. By that time he was back in Vienna, where in 1772 he had been appointed Director of the Imperial Gallery and tasked with its transfer from the Stallburg to the Upper Belvedere. An exhibition of the Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden in cooperation with the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.
OLAFUR ELIASSON BAROQUE BAROQUE Winter Palace 21 November 2015 to 6 March 2016 A cooperation between Belvedere, TBA21 and The Juan & Patricia Vergez Collection
Belvedere and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) are pleased to announce their upcoming exhibition with the Danish Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. BAROQUE BAROQUE is an ambitious venture oldings of
Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy in Vienna. Alongside these works, new site-specific interventions will activate and articulate the historical ensemble, establishing a dialogue between the volubility of the Eliasson states, find it inspiring that the baroque exhibited such confidence in the fluidity of the boundaries between models of reality and, simply, reality. The presentation of my works at the Winter Palace is based on trust in the possibility of constructing reality according to our shared dreams and desires and on faith in the Over the last decades, Eliasson has probed the cognitive and cultural aspects of seeing, stressing the relativity of reality. Transcending the confines of art, his heterogeneous, thought-provoking body of work ranges from discrete interventions to large- scale installations and employs diverse frames of reference from the natural sciences, psychology, and philosophy to challenge the normative and internalized ways in which we perceive our surroundings. In works that make use of motion, projections, shadows, and reflections, Eliasson renders visible the elliptical relationships between body, perception, and representation. Ephemeral materials -including light, reflections, water, wave patterns, and air - are brought into conversation with the spaces of the exhibition and with viewers, who become protagonists of the engaging scenarios. Eliasson plays elegantly with visual illusion, with the liminal and the ephemeral, and with the material and the immaterial, using extroversion and introspection to resonate with cosmological ideas; his works relate strongly to notions of transformation and artifice inherent in the concept of the baroque. As an epoch of great turmoil, the baroque saw revolutionary optical and scientific discoveries as well as a blossoming of interest in the phantasmagoric and the occult. The baroque is here understood as a prolific process of constant reformulation; the tension between light and dark, knowledge and speculation, and rationality and The commissioner and original inhabitant of the Winter Palace, Prince Eugene of Savoy, was a visionary with magnificent taste and unrivaled interests in architecture, design, and art that were matched by his passion for the sciences, including mineralogy and astronomy. Prince Eugene was, like Olafur Eliasson, a man of tremendous vision who loved to embellish but also to discover, to invent, to publish, to create, and to provoke. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is published by the Belvedere and TBA21 in cooperation with Patricia & Juan Vergez Collection.
Agnes Husslein-Arco (Director) Alfred Weidinger (Deputy Director)
Max Geymüller (Head of curatorial affairs)
Curators Veronika Pirker-Aurenhammer (Medieval collection) Georg Lechner (Baroque collection) Sabine Grabner (19 century collection) Rolf H. Johannsen (19 century collection) Alexander Klee (19 and 20 century collection) Stephan Koja (19 and 20 century collection) Markus Fellinger (19 and 20 century collection) Kerstin Jesse (20 century collection)
Mario Codognato (Chief curator and Head of the Department of Contemporary Art) Harald Krejci (20 century collection) Axel Köhne (20 century collection) Severin Dünser (21 century collection) Luisa Ziaja (21 century collection)
External Curators Jane Kallier (Exhibition The Women of Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka) Peter Noever (Exhibition Werner Telesko (Exhibition Europe in Vienna)
Contact Belvedere Public Relations Prinz Eugen-Straße 27 1030 Vienna, Austria T + 43 1 79557-177 | M [email protected] www.belvedere.at
Adresses Upper Belvedere Prinz Eugen-Straße 27 1030 Vienna, Austria
Lower Belvedere, Orangery, Palace stables, Spitzhof Rennweg 6 1030 Vienna, Austria
Winter Palace Himmelpfortgasse 8 1010 Vienna, Austria
21er Haus Schweizergarten, Arsenalstraße 1 1030 Vienna, Austria