The building of the Vienna Secession is regarded as the structural manifestation of the ideas of artist union around Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Carl Moll and others who refused the conservative artistic spirit of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. A feature about this historical and contemporary venue of the arts.

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Today the Vienna Secession, the union of Austrian artists, is the oldest independent exhibition centre dedicated to contemporary art worldwide. The building designed by the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich is regarded as the structural manifestation of the ideas of this artist’s union around Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Carl Moll, Josef Hoffmann, Olbrich and others, whose members refused the conservative approach to art of the Künstlerhaus association at the turn of the century.
To confront the fin de siècle with a holistic art whose vitality would have its effect down to the ordinary everyday life! By means of the Secession building, this claim would obtain an actual location, in order to present art in a space-oriented and comprehensive way, within a synthesis of architecture, painting, sculpture, graphic art and decoration. The artistic approach with the building as its symbol still draws attention and now as then, the usage of the building causes excitement.
On of the most celebrated exhibitions was dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven in 1902, a main work of which being the Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt. On this 34-meter mural painting, the artist focused on Beethoven’s 9th symphony. The painting addresses mankind’s pursuit of happiness in various stages. Because of its explicit eroticism, Klimt’s work provoked admiration as well as severe criticism. At the time the Beethoven Frieze was situated in the left side aisle of the Secession’s main hall and was eventually removed in 1903. Today it is back in the Secession and installed in a specifically created room in the basement floor of the building.
With its spatial arrangement, the architecture of the Vienna Secession has remained relevant in our time. Its functionality and aesthetic peculiarity therefore offer ideal conditions for contemporary arts and exhibition activities. Thus, in accordance with the phrase carved above its entrance, to every age its art and to art its freedom, today the Vienna Secession accomplishes an internationally oriented program, presenting current artistic forms of expression in single and thematic exhibitions.
CastYourArt has created a feature about this historical and contemporary venue of the arts, giving an insight into the building, its architecture and history as well as its activities in contemporary art. (wh)

He has no employees, no assistants, no website or E-mail address. Ever since Glenn Murcutt opened his own office in Sydney in 1969, he works alone. An exhibition on Glenn Murcutt’s work can be seen at the Architekturzentrum Wien in Vienna till 13.02.2011.

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He states that he wants to free himself from the pressure of being responsible for staff. If necessary he cooperates with other architects, like his wife Wendy Levin. In the last 40 years, more than 500 buildings have been constructed, all in Australia, almost exclusively residential buildings and besides a few exceptions, designed, planned and implemented under his supervision. more »

“I felt a tender love towards all classical architecture, but a the same time dreamt of loving contemporary architecture as well”. A portrait of Alexander Brodsky.

Until October 2011, in its ongoing exhibition, the Architekturzentrum Wien displays works and a room-sized installation of the Russian artist and architect Alexander Brodsky.

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At the beginning of his career, Alexander Brodsky is part of the “paper-architecture“ movement even though at that point, at the beginning of the eighties, there is no movement in the true sense yet. The notion “paper-architecture” rather expresses a typical limitation to architectural creativity in the Soviet Union of the time: Young architects who would refuse to fit in with the established architecture system would have no means to carry out their projects, and therefore design only for presentation or indeed just for the paper. more »

Platz da! Consensus or conflict? The exhibition in the Architekturzentrum Wien has a definite answer: both

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The production of space is a central aspect of capitalist economy. The urbanist development has reached great importance within the dynamics of capital accumulation. Be it the privatization of areas, the new forms of mobile communication, the changes in urban space, or the disappearance of the café as agora of political life and debates, the confrontation of ideas in public space is getting increasingly scarce. In order to decode the new usages of public space, the exhibition “Platz da!” delivers an analysis of the relation public-private that is constitutive for the form and sense of public spaces in contemporary cities. more »

In the exhibition Now I See, the MUMOK in Vienna shows yet another retrospective of an internationally renowned Austrian artist. On display there is an overview of Brigitte Kowanz’ oeuvre, with a focus on recent years. This podcast was realised with the kind support of UNIQUA ArtCercles.

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„We are in a constant process of translation“ ascertains Kowanz. “Perception is translation. Language is translation.” Kowanz concerns herself with phenomena eluding conscious perception. In this respect she was influenced by Paul Virilio, who dealt with The Aesthetics of Disappearance of “stable” images. more »

Maria Teresa Ponce understands how people develop a nostalgia for the country they have left behind, where their own friends, family, places, experiences, and history have remained. Ponce left Ecuador when she was nine and moved to the US, where she spent her youth, and studied architecture. After she completed her degree, she returned to Ecuador to find a country in economic crisis, with no work to be found for young architects.

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This crisis resulted in Ponce turning to art: she began to take photographs. She experienced that photography opened up new worlds which interested her, but to which she hardly had access. Her photographic work investigates the inner world of prisons, including their inmates. She then digitally superimposed the photographs from the prisons onto photographs of a condemned hospital building, thereby representing the ailments of an institution meant for rehabilitation. more »

At the ripe old age of 35, Francisca Benitez calls herself a “retired architect”. When the Chilean-born artist first arrived in New York ten years earlier, her experience as an architect permanently shaped her view of the city. What she imagined as a creative, intellectually challenging profession, turned out to be an exercise in municipal bureaucracy—much of her work was about interpreting building codes and zoning restrictions, cutting through administrative red tape, and facing the challenges of a complex system of rules, regulations, and protocol.

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All of these obstacles, however, only served to further inform her unique perspective and conception of a sprawling urban landscape. She found that her attention was more and more drawn to those dimensions and spaces around her that may be overlooked, or taken for granted. Informed and inspired by her heroes, Gordon Matta-Clark and Ed Ruscha, she never lost sight of the bigger (or smaller) picture—that the jurisdiction of boundaries, lines, and interactions was a process that was constantly being defined, whether the results followed the modus operandi or not. more »

In 1908, Adolf Loos published a polemic modern architecture pamphlet titled “Ornament and Crime”. Ornamentation, he argues, is redundant, cost-intensive kitschy decoration, and an expression of the cultural backwardness which can be found in primitive cultures, and which is not representative of modern man. “The barbarian era,” the architect concludes, “is finally past.”

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Only a few years later, Siegfried Kracauer showed that even the modern era, which strives for practicality and rationalization, produces ornaments on its surface. He argues that these ornamentations are an expression of modern mass society, visual representations of modern life and its realities. The ornamentation is not taken into consideration by the masses who produce it. It develops without their knowledge. They do not produce it consciously or on purpose, which is why it resembles “the aerial shots of landscapes and cities”, in which patterns only emerge for the distant viewer. more »

“Contemporary art as a field for human freedom, as a possibility to understand a modern individual’s view of society.” The field of freedom is much broader than it would be without contemporary art, according to Slavko Bogdanovic, lawyer and chairman of the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Vojvodina. Therefore, it is already in the interest of all to maintain its existence.

Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad, Vojvodina. Part 1

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Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad, Vojvodina. Part 2

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Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad, Vojvodina. Part 3

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The basic conditions for contemporary art are undergoing a radical change in Vojvodina, as in other parts of Serbia and the Southeast-European world. The pre-war structures of production, mediation, theory formation, and marketing have been destroyed or taken over; missing resources have been preventing and making the new conditions for advancement more difficult for a long time up until today. But the attitudes of many people in the art enterprise have changed. Instead of commiserating over existing adversities, they are taking action. more »