STATS STATS THE 5 MOST EXPENSIVE PAINTINGS OF ALL TIME HALLOWED HALLS VISITORS TO Art for art’s sake is a OF WONDER CULTURAL VENUES beautiful ideal, but the In 2014, Austria’s art museums drew in more than 4 million people. The big Traditional places of culture going strong in Austria, with museums gaining art market shows that three are the Belvedere with 950,000, the Albertina with 800,000 and the more visitors every and theaters well frequented. you can also earn hard Kunsthistorische Museum with over 700,000 and the Albertina with. dollars with master- pieces. In the last two Annual visitors Number of museums of each type decades, prices for the 17.3million visitors most sought-after 6,000,000 artworks exploded. MUSEUMS Austrian museums are magnets for visitors, but even so, 5,000,000 64 their receipts only cover 22.5 percent of total expenses. Generous subsi- PAINTING Salvator Mundi Nafea Faa Ipoipo The Card Players 100 229 dies ensure easy and affordable access for all citizens. (When Will You Marry?) 4,000,000

ARTIST attributed to Paul Gauguin Paul Cézanne 3,000,000 6Million visitors YEAR c. 1500 1955 1892 1892/93 1948 2,000,000 91 THEATER & OPERA With some of the world’s most renowned DATE OF SALE November 15, 2017 September 2015 February 2015 April 2011 September 2015 1,000,000 19 35 stages, Austrian theaters and opera houses pride themselves of flling SELLER Dmitry Rybolovlev Foundation Heirs of R.Staechelin George Embiricos David Geffen Foundation 19 5 87 percent (VBW) to 99 percent (State Opera) of available seats. BUYER Abu Dhabi Department of Kenneth C. Griffn Sheikha Al-Mayassa of Sheikha Al-Mayassa of Kenneth C. Griffn Culture & Tourism the State of Qatar the State of Qatar

Christie’s, New York Private sale Private sale Private sale Private sale AUCTION HOUSE Art Museums Million Other Museums 15 visitors Thematic Museums ADJUSTED PRICE CINEMA While attendance is not as high as in the United States, (IN MILLIONS) Museums with Diverse Divisions Culture-Historical Museums and those in Austria who love the cinema still go to the movies about four Technology and Science Museums €241 €221 €166 times a year. €368 €248 Historical and ArchaeologicalMuseums of Nature Museums and Natural History Ethnographic and Antrophological Museums FIVE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL A NETWORK OF MUSEUMS CONTEMPORARY AUSTRIAN VISUAL ARTISTS IN CITIES AND THE COUNTRYSIDE While the fine arts have a great history in Austria, contemporary visual artists are also making waves 1,406,600 Kunsthistorisches Museum & others in their respective fields. Here are some of the greatest in their métier. Austria boasts plenty of museums, both in urban and in rural regions. Out of a total of 17.3 million museum visitors in 2014, a quarter (4.7 million) went to see the federal museums 957,800 Belvedere based in Vienna. Roughly a sixth visited regional museums (3 million) and another sixth the 754,800 Naturhistorisches Museum museums of the federal states (2.5 million). The remaining 40 percent (7.1 million) went to 631,100 Albertina other museums of various types. 432,856 Wien Museum Salzburg Museums Upper Austrian Museums 366,500 Vienna Regional and other Museums 833,151 164,840 Technical Museum 101,100 MAK Museums of the Länder (federal states) 181,100 mumok Federal Museums Lower Austrian Museum 60,290 Density of Museums HERMANN NITSCH ARNULF RAINER ERWIN WURM 13,978 Museum HERBERT BRANDL BRIGITTE KOWANZ Tyrolean Museums Hermann Nitsch (born 1938) is Arnulf Rainer (born 1929) is an Herbert Brandl (born 1959) is Erwin Wurm (born 1954) is an Brigitte Kowanz (born 1957) is 343,488 Burgenland an Austrian avant-garde Austrian painter noted for his an Austrian painter and part Austrian artist. He is known an Austrian artist and 57,003 vorarlberg museum artist who works in abstract informal art. During of the 1980s movement Neue for his humorous approach to professor of transmedial art experimental and multimedia his early years, Rainer was Wilde (Wild Style). He is noted formalism. Wurm’s work in Vienna. Since the 1980s, modes. He is associated with infuenced by Surrealism. In for his creative use of com- portrays manipulated images Brigitte Kowanz’s work cente- the Vienna Actionists – a 1950, he founded the Hunds- plex colors, techniques and of things in everyday life red on the investigation of 567,883 Universalmuseum Joanneum group of confrontational gruppe (dog group) together motifs. Brandls work is also that look familiar but space and light. Another Austrian artists that also with Ernst Fuchs, Arik Brauer, often subsumed under the become distorted. His work is focus of her artistic creation includes Günter Brus, Otto and Josef Mikl. After 1954, style of Neo-Expressionism, often critical of Western are language and writing and Muehl, and Rudolf Schwarz- Rainer’s style evolved toward which is characterized by society and the mentality and their translation into codes. KARIN DREHER, - GRAFIKDESIGN.COM ILLUSTRATIONS: Carinthian Museum kogler. Nitsch is known for his "destruction of forms," with intense subjectivity and a lifestyle he experienced Kowanz uses (semi-)transpa- 46,993 abstract ”splatter” paintings blackenings, overpaintings, rough handling of materials during his childhood in rent glasses and mirrors, and performance pieces. and maskings dominating. for paintings and sculptures. post-World War II Austria. especially in her newer works. Source: Museumsstatistik 2014, Museumsbund Österreich.

24 MARCH 2018 MARCH 2018 25