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)

For the sixth time, Viennafair takes place from May 6th to May 9th, with a focus on Central and Eastern European art. We spoke with Edek Bartz, the artistic director of the fair.

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Viennafair - Part 1 - Focus on CEE Countries

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Viennafair - Part 2 - Focus on Film and Art

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As is the case everywhere, the financial crisis has separated the wheat from the chaff—in the art market as well. In the meantime, the storm is past, and the art market has recovered. Sales records have once again been reported from London, New York, and Paris.

As is the case everywhere, the financial crisis has separated the wheat from the chaff—in the art market as well. In the meantime, the storm is past, and the art market has recovered. Sales records have once again been reported from London, New York, and Paris.

In Vienna, the Viennafair is entering its sixth year. Optimism is the key word at the moment. “Cooperation is the key to success”, as noted in the press release for the most important art fair of Austria. In this case, necessity breeds inventiveness. more »

Faced with the challenge of representing a recently merged corporate collection comprised of over 60,000 works, curator Walter Guadagnini went back to the basic questions concerning art: Why is art important? What role does it play in society? How does it relate to our everyday life? As the art community becomes ever more global, how can we encompass the vastly diverse range of art that is presented to us?

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The exhibition, “PastPresentFuture”, at the Bank Austria Kunstforum, is an introduction to the UniCredit Group art collection, which now includes the combined collections of all the individual banks that have merged into UniCredit, including UniCredit in Italy, HypoVereinsbank in Germany, and Bank Austria, thereby making it one of the most valuable corporate collections in Europe. more »

Austria’s newest international art fair offering, the “art albertina“, is specifically dedicated to a medium which has, until now, often played a subordinate role in the art market—drawing. From September 23rd to the 27th, several prestigious art dealers and galleries will be presenting master drawings from every period in the Propter-Homines-Halle of the Albertina Museum. This podcast was realised with the kind support of UNIQUA ArtCercles.

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Klaus Albrecht Schröder, director of the Albertina Museum, hopes to be able to establish a second major fair for the art of drawing with “art albertina“, alongside the renowned springtime fair, the Salon du Dessin in Paris, and is aiming for a new positioning at the same time. Classic modern and national contemporary art works predominate, followed by representative nineteenth-century pieces. more »

The border between nature and culture is a tectonic faultline of human self-understanding. For example, when humanism seeks to tame the animal instinct in people, this can be understood as a tectonically preventive measure on the level of cultural history. When humans dabble in creation regarding nature, the foundations of both sides sometimes clash. The resulting tremor can then be so large that it raises a mountain of questions, which are often so disturbing that they force us to reinvestigate the notion of being human.

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The exhibition, “Nature - Creation is not finished!”, at the Monastery of Admont, looks at the boundaries and dissolution of boundaries between nature and culture. However, the artistic directions of the exhibition are not limited to earthquake faultlines. Rather than becoming fixed on the precariousness of the boundary, a multiplicity of different presentations of nature becomes evident. The artistic handling of creation is more playful. more »

By mid-January, the London Art Fair kicks off the international art fair season. At year end, offerings such as Art Basel Miami or alternatively, the Contemporary Art Fair in Istanbul are up for grabs to art dealers, buyers, and onlookers.

Videomoods from the ViennaFair 2009

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Audiointerview with Edek Bartz artistic director of Vienna Fair

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The business of fine art is conducted at these fairs. Depending on which art information site that one consults, anywhere from 30 up to 100 art fairs pave the way of artistic-financial exchange between London and Miami each year. In view of the vast range of fairs to choose from, it has become increasingly important in the last few years for fair directors to develop a comprehensive profile of their event. 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 »

In the Austrian Alps, a modern private museum was set up between Vienna, Linz, Graz, and Salzburg in 2003, after five years of construction. Within a few years, it was awarded the Austrian Museum Prize for its innovative design and in recognition of the unusual dedication of its private owners to the preservation, presentation, and promotion of art.

According to the director of the collection, Michael Braunsteiner, the owners of the museum demonstrate a style that is “absolutely relaxed and somehow cooler”. This is surprising considering that the owners are not newly-rich young idealists, but the monks from the Benedictine Admont Monastery, which dates back over 1000 years, and whose monks are aged over fifty years old on average.

The developing years of the museum. Part 1

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Developing the contemporary art collection. Part 2

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Since the renovation, the Benedictine monastery does not only house the newly reconstructed, largest monastery library in the world, but also a museum complex extending over several floors, which includes an art-historical and natural history museum, as well its own permanent collection of contemporary art and exterior monastery spaces used for art installations.

In 1998, Michael Braunsteiner was assigned to lead the transformation of the museum Stift Admont and to curate the development of the contemporary art collection. CastYourArt spoke with him about the developing years of the museum, especially in regard to the arrangement and layout of the contemporary art collection. (wh/jn)

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 »