„The 1960ies: a fantastic modern“ in the MUSA Vienna reveals the spirit of a decade marked by radical upheaval, along the way the entire who’s who of Austrian art is displayed.

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Not only in politics, also in the domain of the arts the 1960ies were a decade of worldwide upheaval, the radical changes can also be retraced in the Austrian art scene of that period. At the beginning of the decade, art became in many cases more political and provocative in its statements, drawing on subjects in between the realities of the mundane and the artistic. The convergence of high culture and popular culture has its beginnings in these movements, followed by a fundamental challenge to the previous notion of art. more »

The collection of the city of Vienna shows an enormous variety of approaches to the human figure. In other words: the sculpture steps off its pedestal – or not.

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The Museum on Demand MUSA houses much of the artwork purchased by the City of Vienna through the years and is currently displaying them in the exhibition “re_figuring spaces”. The collection that owes its existence mostly to sponsorship initiatives of the municipality provides a glimpse of the different positions on sculpture and their evolution in the last half-century, as well as a who’s who of the Austrian postwar art scene. more »

We keep things on hand because they are important to us. We store them. They are available: for example, birthdays of friends, important telephone numbers, and sometimes, works of art. In Vienna, the Museum on Demand (Museum auf Abruf, MUSA) serves this purpose. This museum of the city of Vienna keeps a collection of artworks by artists living in Vienna which is accessible to the city’s residents.

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The collection began in 1945 with an acquisition of watercolors. Since then, the art collection has increased to nearly 20,000 works. They represent the work of Vienna’s resident artists for over a half century. Acquisition, says the present director of MUSA, Berthold Ecker, is the most significant form of support for artists. This has been the cornerstone of MUSA’s artistic policy since the beginning and remains so until today. The city of Vienna purchases about 130 new works of art annually for this collection. Today, one can find works from Franz West, Maria Lassnig, and Erwin Wurm there. more »