EXHIBITION PREVIEW from June 2017 Belvedere | 21er Haus | Winterpalais All information and images for press use are available online: www.belvedere.at/presse OVERVIEW Erwin Wurm – Performative Sculptures 2 June - 10 September 2017 | 21er Haus Specular Windows - Reflections on the Self and the Wider World 22 June - 29 October 2017 | 21er Haus Linda Christanell – Picture Again 22 June - 10 September 2017 | 21er Haus Klimt and Antiquity – Erotic Encounters 23 June - 8 October 2017 | Orangery Maria Theresa and the Arts 30 June - 5 November 2017 | Lower Belvedere John III Sobieski - A Polish King in Vienna 7 July - 1 November 2017 | Winterpalais Instructions for Happiness 8 July - 5 November 2017 | 21er Haus BC21 Art Award 2017 20 September - 29 October 2017 | 21er Haus Duet with Artist – Participation as artistic principle 27 September 2017 - 4 February 2018 | 21er Haus Vienna and Zagreb circa 1900 20 October 2017 - 18 February 2018 | Orangery Aging Pride 17 November 2017 - 11 March 2018 | Lower Belvedere Masterpieces in Focus: Rueland Frueauf the Elder and his Circle 23 November 2017 - 18 March 2018 | Upper Belvedere All information and images for press use are available online: www.belvedere.at/presse 21ER HAUS Erwin Wurm – Performative Sculptures 2 June to 10 September 2017 Curators: Severin Dünser, Alfred Weidinger There’s no avoiding Erwin Wurm in 2017. Internationally represented in several major exhibitions, his works will most notably be shown alongside Brigitte Kowanz at the Austrian Pavilion of this year’s Art Biennial in Venice. Starting in June, the 21er Haus will show his statues and performative sculptures. Erwin Wurm has been exploring the expressive possibilities of sculpture for more than 25 years. His diverse oeuvre is as profound as it can be ironic and encompasses almost all genres, extending the concept of sculpture by incorporating interactive, social, and temporal aspects. In his approach, even adhering to a series of instructions for action can become a sculpture. The radicalism of his venture to expand on conventional categorizations is reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp, who declared experimental, visual thinking as an artistic programme that enables new avenues for art to open up. Around 1990, Wurm found a new form of expression with his Performative Sculptures – a new term that the artist claimed for himself. The solo exhibition at the 21er Haus comprises upwards of 40 performative sculptures and statues, including a series of new works which Wurm developed especially for the show. In his most recent work, he deals with extraordinary examples of architecture and objects of daily use. The starting point is represented by models and blocks of clay, which are usually processed by Wurm himself or other people whom he instructs. Tension arises in the dialogue between the original form of objects and the traces left by the performative interventions, turning the body into the material and the medium of action. In the exhibition, the works of clay are juxtaposed with castings made of bronze, aluminium, iron, or polyester resin. Credit: Erwin Wurm, House Attack, Performance 2012, © Gerald Plattner All information and images for press use are available online: www.belvedere.at/presse 21ER HAUS Specular Windows - Reflections on the Self and the Wider World 22 June to 29 October 2017 Curators: Severin Dünser, Luisa Ziaja Windows are openings that frame the exterior from within, while viewed from the outside, they reflect ourselves. This exhibition follows such inner and outer views and how they interact. Specular Windows brings together around sixty contemporary works and a selection of historical pieces from the Belvedere collection, all of which revolve around experiences of self and world. The artworks deal with utopias and crises, the horror of the everyday, phenomena of the spiritual, the politicization of the body, as well as sociophysics and psychonautics, surreal worlds and individual mythologies. Drawing from the notion of art as a window to the world, this exhibition takes a look at the tension between the individual and society and reflects its effects on the body and mind. With works by Marc Adrian, Martin Arnold, Vittorio Brodmann, Georg Chaimowicz, Adriana Czernin, Josef Dabernig, Gunter Damisch, VALIE EXPORT, Judith Fegerl, Michael Franz / Nadim Vardag, Padhi Frieberger, Bernhard Frue, Walter Gamerith, Bruno Gironcoli, Samara Golden, Judith Hopf, Alfred Hrdlicka, Iman Issa, Martha Jungwirth, Jesper Just, Tillman Kaiser, Johanna Kandl, Joseph Kosuth, Susanne Kriemann, Friedl Kubelka / Peter Weibel, Luiza Margan, Till Megerle, Henri Michaux, Muntean Rosenblum, Damian Ortega, Walter Pichler, Tobias Pils, Arnulf Rainer, Ugo Rondinone, Isa Rosenberger, Gerhard Rühm, Markus Schinwald, Toni Schmale, Anne Schneider, Richard Teschner, Simon Wachsmuth, Rudolf Wacker, Anna Witt Credit: Isa Rosenberger, Espiral, 2010/2013 (Dancer: Amanda Piña, Set image: Reinhard Mayr), © Artothek des Bundes, Videostill: © Isa Rosenberger All information and images for press use are available online: www.belvedere.at/presse 21ER HAUS Linda Christanell – Picture Again 22 June to 10 September 2017 Curator: Harald Krejci Artist and filmmaker Linda Christanell, born 1939, is considered one of the key figures of the Austrian feminist avant-garde. The 21er Haus is the first museum in Vienna to highlight her artistic cosmos in a solo exhibition. Conceived as a retrospective installation, Picture Again features the artist’s work from the past 50 years and explains her pictorial world. The exhibition sets Christanell’s works in spatial relationships with each other. Individual objects such as hatpins, custom jewellery, postcards, and mirrors invariably serve as forms for photographs and films. Drawings, text, photography, film, sculpture, and found objects are woven into a poetic picture story. A pioneer of feminist art, Linda Christanell has both individually and collectively provided socio-political stimuli. She worked in the fields of painting, object art, installation, performance, and photography before she turned to intensively engaging with the moving image. The focus of her cinematic work is the deconstruction of the traditional male gaze, and to challenge the functional mechanisms of the cinematic medium. The inspiration and thematic focus of her work is the female experience, societal attributions, corporeality, eroticism, and sexuality. Credit: L.C., 1977, from the image folder of the performance Fingerfächer, 1977, © Archive Linda Christanell All information and images for press use are available online: www.belvedere.at/presse ORANGERY Klimt and Antiquity – Erotic Encounters 23 June to 8 October 2017 Curator: Tobias Natter This exhibition explores the fascinating dialogue between Gustav Klimt’s work and classical art. A selection of examples from the artist’s oeuvre illustrates a fundamental shift in his understanding of antiquity. Whereas his early work, influenced by Historicism, reveals an interest in the details of classical art, after 1900 he translated the spirit of antiquity into his own formal language. The exhibition illustrates this development through juxtaposing Klimt’s work with classical vase painting and casts of sculptures that inspired the artist. Further highlights are Klimt’s illustrations for a new edition of Dialogues of the Courtesans by Lucian (c. 120–185 A.D.). Published in 1907, this erotic compilation represents a perfect pairing of Klimt’s risqué drawings with Josef Hoffmann’s Wiener Werkstätte design to create one of European Jugendstil’s most beautiful books. Select examples of Attic red-figure vase paintings offer a glimpse of the world in which the classical author Lucian set his Dialogues of the Courtesans. Although separated by more than two millennia, the interplay between classical vase painting and Klimt’s linear art reveals surprising correlations, unveiling new perspectives on how the artist appreciated antiquity. The exhibition is a cooperation with the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Credit: Gustav Klimt, Reinzeichnung zum Plakat der 1. Ausstellung der Secession, 1898, © Wien Museum All information and images for press use are available online: www.belvedere.at/presse LOWER BELVEDERE Maria Theresa and the Arts 30 June to 5 November 2017 Curator: Georg Lechner This is the first exhibition to investigate Maria Theresa’s relationship to the visual arts. Hence the show concentrates on those artistic genres that were of primary importance in her day. They include portraiture and portrait sculpture, which served the purpose of representing the imperial dynasty (with works by Martin van Meytens the Younger, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, and Jean-Etienne Liotard). Allegorical paintings and ceiling frescoes, impressive designs for which have survived (such as by Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Daniel Gran, and Gregorio Guglielmi), fulfilled a similar function. In addition, landscape painting was held in high esteem, with Johann Christian Brand having been exceptionally influential for future generations of artists. As far as sculpture was concerned, the monarch placed her trust in two masters in particular: Balthasar Ferdinand Moll, who was, among other things, responsible for designing the magnificent sarcophaguses in the Capuchin Crypt, and Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Beyer and his collaborators will be represented in the exhibition with their works. Finally, the focus will be on the Belvedere itself, for the decision to choose it as the home of the imperial gallery was still made during Maria