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Bregenz, Austria
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Cosima von Bonin
Dates: 17 Jul 09 - 3 Oct 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Karl Tizian Platz, Postfach 371 Bregenz A-6901
Tel: +43 (0)557 448 5940 Website
Tony Oursler: Lock 2, 4, 6
Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Video & New Media
Address: Karl Tizian Platz, Postfach 371 Bregenz A-6901
Tel: +43 (0)557 448 5940 Website
Graz, Austria
Alte Galerie, Universalmuseum Joanneum
Black Art: Mezzotints
Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Schloss Eggenberg, Eggenberg Allee 90 Graz 8020
Tel: +43 (0)316 8017-9770 Website
Artelier Contemporary
Peter Kotler
Dates: 15 Nov 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Griesgasse 3 Graz AT 8020
Tel: +43 (0) 316 834411 Website
Kunsthaus Graz, Museum Joanneum
Warhol, Wool, Newman: Painting Real
Dates: 26 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Lendkai 1 Graz A-8020
Tel: +43 (0) 316 8017 9200 Website
The place of Andy Warhol as the leading figure of late 20th century art is explored in this show of 20 works by the late American artist dating from the 1960s, which are shown with art by Barnett Newman and Christopher Wool. Curator Peter Pakesch has focused on a period in the 1960s when Warhol was looking particularly towards work from the previous decade by Newman. The works on show include Warhol’s disaster paintings, which are seen as owing a debt to Newman’s monochrome pieces. Chicago-born artist Christopher Wool is represented by about 20 word paintings seen as being influenced by Warhol. Items have been loaned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Tate, London, and private collections. James Hobbs
Andy Warhol, Flowers (Large Flowers 1 Orange, One Purple), 1964
Neue Galerie Graz
Katharina Stiglitz
Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 8 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Sackstrasse 16 Graz A-8010
Tel: +43 (0)316 829 155 Website
Herbert Boeckl: a Retrospective
Dates: 20 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Sackstrasse 16 Graz A-8010
Tel: +43 (0)316 829 155 Website
Volkskundemuseum, Museum Johanneum
The Krampus: Evil Tamed
Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Curious
Address: Paulustorgasse 11-13a Graz 8010
Tel: +43 316/80 17-9899 Website
Innsbruck, Austria
Galerie Bernd Kugler
Thilo Heinzmann
Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Burggraben 6 / II (Hörtnaglpassage) Innsbruck 6020
Tel: +43 512 561748 Website
Galerie im Taxis Palais
Claudia & Julia Müller
Dates: 4 Oct 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Maria-Theresien-Strasse 45 Innsbruck a-6020
Tel: +43 512 508 3170 Website
Kunstraum Innsbruck
Carsten Nicolai
Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Maria Theresien Str. 34, Arkadenhof Innsbruck A-6020
Tel: +43-512-584000 Website
German artist and musician Carsten Nicolai’s work is concerned with scientific experiments involving sound, light and space. The main presentation is four 2009 works from the “Aoyama Space” series. The name derives from a photographic studio in Tokyo’s Aoyama district, in which there is a concave room designed to create a seemingly endless space. Nicolai’s “Aoyama Space” works act as scaled down models of imaginary room installations, replicating the curved edges of the studio. In each case, a box is illuminated by a light triggered by specially composed electronic sounds.
Also on show are 48 prints from the “Fades Stills” series of 2006, the images taken from his “Fades” video and sound installation, in which beams of white light are projected to create a light sculpture that moves in synch with the sound. Nicolai is also showing another installation work involving sound, Invertone, 2007. Two loudspeakers emit white noise in a room whose walls are coated with sound-absorbing acoustic foam. If the viewer stands directly between the two speakers, the soundwaves erase each other, but at all other points in the room the sound can be heard.
The show, curated by Kunstraum Innsbruck director Stefan Bidner and Innsbruck artist Christoph Hinterhuber, has been staged in collaboration with the Innsbruck organisation Medien Kunst Tirol. On 7 November, Nicolai will be performing under his musician identity, Alva Noto, with a live sound and video event at the Innsbruck venue Max Events and Culture. Rosie Spencer
Aoyama Space no.2, 2009
Linz, Austria
Lentos Kunstmuseum
See This Sound
Dates: 28 Aug 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1 Linz 4020
Tel: +43 (0)70 7070 36 00 Website
Paris, France
Musée Jacquemart-André
Brueghel, Memling, Van Eyck: the Brukenthal Collection
Dates: 11 Sep 09 - 11 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 158, boulevard Haussmann Paris 75008
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 89 04 91 Website
Continuing its series of exhibitions focused on major collectors, the Jacquemart-André Museum presents 50 Flemish, Italian, German and Dutch works amassed by Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803). The pieces are drawn from the Brukenthal National Museum in Romania—home to one of the most prestigious art collections in Central Europe.
A career politician, Brukenthal was made governor of his native Transylvania by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, who considered him a close personal adviser. He began acquiring his collection in Vienna and quickly earned a reputation as an insatiable collector with a discerning eye, purchasing nearly 16,000 books, 800 etchings, 12,000 paintings and a number of objets d’art. Particularly rich in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings—the Golden Age of Art in the Low Countries—the collection was supplemented by a number of works presented to him by Maria Theresa. His baroque palace in Sibiu, central Romania, was constructed as a showcase for his collection and upon his death in 1803 it was opened to the public.
The exhibition aims to show the quality of his collection by presenting the very best pieces amassed by Brukenthal. Most of the works are Flemish, a school particularly popular with 18th-century Viennese collectors. The show is arranged in five thematic sections: portraits, landscapes, genre paintings, still-lifes and history painting.
The segment dedicated to portraiture is dominated by works by the Flemish Primitives, a group of 15th-century artists concerned with the precise rendering of details such as jewellery, fabrics and furs. The oldest portrait by Van Eyck, Portrait of the Man in a Blue Turban (1430-33), shows the artist’s desire to include details like the sitter’s fur coat and beard, and Hans Memling’s Portrait of Reading Man (1485) shows the careful rendering of the book’s gilded pages. Included in the section devoted to landscapes is one of Bruegel’s best known works, Massacre of the Innocents (1566-67), a piece depicting villagers being slaughtered by soldiers following the orders of Philip II of Spain. Visitors can see genre paintings by Dutch artists David Teniers and Frans Van Mieris, still-lifes by Jan Davidsz de Heem and Erasmus Quellinus and history paintings by Jacob Jordaens. Pieces by Italian masters Lorenzo Lotto and Titian are also included in the display.
The show is curated by Flemish art specialist Jan de Maere and Jacquemart-André curator Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot. E.S.
Bruegel’s Massacre of the Innocents, 1566-67
Salzburg, Austria
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg
Gilbert and George: Jack Freak Pictures
Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Mirabellaplatz 2 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0) 662 881 3930 Website
Paul P.
Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 21 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Mirabellaplatz 2 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0) 662 881 3930 Website
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Mönchsberg 32 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0)662 8422 20401 Website
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Mönchsberg 32 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0)662 8422 20401 Website
Arnulf Rainer: Female
Dates: 22 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Mönchsberg 32 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0)662 8422 20401 Website
Donations by Thaddaeus Ropac
Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Mönchsberg 32 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0)662 8422 20401 Website
The Museum der Moderne Salzburg has 25 reasons to cheer Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s anniversary after the dealer’s donation of 25 works—one for each year—to the museum. “We thought it was more interesting to give works to Salzburg than organise a self-celebratory gallery show,” said Ropac, who invited museum director Toni Stooss to visit studios and choose from the gallery inventory in order to make the selection. The resulting exhibition comprises new and recent work by gallery artists, focusing on work by artists from German-speaking countries, based on the focus of the museum’s existing collection. The show, at the Mönchsberg site, includes two Georg Baselitz drawings, a recent Anselm Kiefer work, an Elger Esser photograph, paintings by Lisa Ruyter, Hubert Scheibl and Bernhard Martin, a video installation by Harun Farocki and sculptures by Sylvie Fleury and Erwin Wurm.
Gerwald Rockenschaub, Untitled, 2006.
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Rupertinum
Werner Schnelle: Photographic Concepts
Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Wiener-Philharmoniker-Gasse 9 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0)662 84 22 20451 Website
Christian Grayer: Jazz Close Up
Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Wiener-Philharmoniker-Gasse 9 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0)662 84 22 20451 Website
Residenzgalerie
The Full Splendour: Paintings in the Residenzgalerie
Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Residenzplatz 1 Salzburg A-5020
Tel: +43 (0)6 62 840451-0 Website
Salzburger Kunstverein
No Sound of Music
Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Künstlerhaus, Hellbrunner Strasse 3 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0) 662 842294 27 Website
Dan Perjovschi
Dates: 14 Aug 09 - 1 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Künstlerhaus, Hellbrunner Strasse 3 Salzburg 5020
Tel: +43 (0) 662 842294 27 Website
Tokyo, Japan
National Art Center Tokyo
Treasures of the Habsburg Monarchy: 140th Jubilee of the Friendship Treaty between Austria-Hungary and Japan
Dates: 25 Sep 09 - 14 Dec 09
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku Tokyo 106-8558
Tel: +81 (0)3 6812 9900 Website
Vienna, Austria
Albertina Graphische Sammlung
Impressionism: Painting Light
Dates: 10 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Impressionism
Address: Albertinaplatz 1 Vienna 1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 534 83-555 Website
Augarten Contemporary
BC21 Boston Consulting and Belvedere Contemporary Art Award
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Scherzergasse 1a Vienna 1020
Tel: + 43 (0) 1 795 570 Website
Herbert Boeckl: a Retrospective
Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Scherzergasse 1a Vienna 1020
Tel: + 43 (0) 1 795 570 Website
Austrian Theatermuseum
The Stage is Set: Stage Models, Eight Examples from the Collections of the Austrian Theatre Museum
Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 31 Dec 11
Categories: Curious
Address: Palais Lobkowitz, Lobkowitzplatz 2 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 1 525 24 / 641 Website
Bank Austria Kunstforum
Past Present Future: Works from the Unicredit Group Collection
Dates: 18 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Curious
Address: Freyung 8 Vienna 1010
Tel: Website
Christine König Galerie
Stanley Whitney: I Remember Clifford Still
Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Schleifmühlgasse 1a Vienna 1040
Tel: +43 (0) 1 585 74 74 Website
Alice Cattaneo
Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Schleifmühlgasse 1a Vienna 1040
Tel: +43 (0) 1 585 74 74 Website
Essl Museum
Daniel Richter
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: An der Donau-Au 1, Klosterneuburg Vienna A- 3400
Tel: +43 (0)2243 370 50 Website
Aspects of Collecting
Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Curious
Address: An der Donau-Au 1, Klosterneuburg Vienna A- 3400
Tel: +43 (0)2243 370 50 Website
In 1999 the Essl Museum, which grew out of Karl-Heinz and Agnes Essl’s private collection of more than 7,000 works, was opened to the public. It started in 1959 as a collection of Austrian art, but at the end of the 1980s the Essls started to include international modern and contemporary art. “As the communist movement broke down our company moved into Eastern Europe,” explained Karl-Heinz. “I took over the business and we had more funds to realise art projects. We decided to open the collection to international art, alongside Austrian. The museum was built as we realised that the collection was important culturally and should be seen by the public.”
In celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Essl Museum, this exhibition shows works that have been recently acquired through the Essl acquisitions and exhibition project by 10 international museums. These museums were offered a budget, funded by the couple, to acquire works that will return to the museums on permanent loan after the exhibition. “I invited museums from across the world, from Tokyo to Delhi. The problem with a lot of these museums is that they don’t have the funds to collect all they would like, so I had the idea to give each of the museums a budget and tell them to buy whatever they wanted, with restraints on how they acquired,” said Essl.
The resulting show is an insight into the collecting strategy behind the different museums. “As a collector I was very interested to see what and how museums from a wide-ranging social and cultural background collect. Do they collect from their own country or do they focus on international works? Some have chosen one major piece while others have chosen 30 smaller works,” Essl explained.
Annette Messager, Gonflés, Dégonflés, 2005-06
Galerie Ernst Hilger
Peter Krawagna
Dates: 3 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Dorotheergasse 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43-1-512 53 15 Website
Galerie Martin Janda
Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 5 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Eschenbachgasse 11 Vienna 1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 585 7371 Website
Giuseppe Gabellone
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 5 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Eschenbachgasse 11 Vienna 1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 585 7371 Website
Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Rosemarie Schwarzwälde
Bernard Frize
Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 16 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Grünergasse 1/2 Vienna a-1010
Tel: +43 (0) 1 512 1266 Website
Jewish Museum
Teofila Reich-Ranicki: Pictures from the Warsaw Ghetto
Dates: 16 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Dorotheergasse 11 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 535 0431 Website
Fritz Schwartz-Waldegg (1889-1942): Travels into the Self and the World
Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 25 Apr 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Dorotheergasse 11 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 535 0431 Website
Fritz Schwarzwaldegg
Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 25 Apr 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Dorotheergasse 11 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 535 0431 Website
Kunsthalle Wien
Francesco Vezzoli
Dates: 11 Nov 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0) 1 521 8922 Website
1989: End of History or Beginning of the Future?
Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0) 1 521 8922 Website
Videorama: Art Clips from Austria
Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Video & New Media
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0) 1 521 8922 Website
Kunsthalle Wien, Karlsplatz Project Space
Francesco Vezzoli
Dates: 11 Nov 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Treitlstrasse 2 Vienna A-1040
Tel: +43 1 52189-33 Website
KunstHausWien
Annie Liebovitz: a Photographer’s Life 1990-2005
Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Photography
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Untere Weissgerberstrasse 13 Vienna A-1030
Tel: +43 (0)1 712 0495 Website
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Charles the Bold: Splendour and Fall of the Last Duke of Burgundy
Dates: 15 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Maria Theresien-Platz Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 525 240 Website
The favourite impresa or heraldic emblem of Charles the Bold was a device showing the flint, steel and flames. With hindsight, this piece of armorial self-promotion ironically summarises the duke’s essential weakness, rather than the power and energy he intended it to project. The English and German translations of his posthumous epithet “le Téméraire”—“the Bold”, “der Kühne”—fail to convey the harmonics of the French: foolhardy, rash or overreaching, as well as brave and daring. Sparks flying from steel and stone can set fires that run out of control as well as provide heat and light. Charles’s reign brought the Duchy of Burgundy to its white-heat culmination as one of the most brilliant, aesthetically refined European courts of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and finally to cinders and dust with his ignominious death on the battlefield of Nancy.
The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy, a branch of the French royal house, built up their territories from the accession of Philip the Bold (“le Hardi”) in 1363 by inheritance, marriage, conquest and purchase. Over four generations, their territories expanded from an area of about a 100-mile radius around Dijon and Besançon to a state that also included all of present-day Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and most of north-eastern France. Until Charles the Bold, the dukes had—not without dollops of good luck—advantageously manipulated their geographical position between France, the Holy Roman Empire and England (for example, Charles married Mary of York, the sister of Edward IV, to whom Charles had made massive loans, thus binding England to Burgundy with ties of marriage and money). The dukes were also lavish patrons of the arts, none more so than Charles’s father, Philip the Good (1396-1464) as well as Charles himself.
This exhibition, having been seen in Bern and Bruges, places intimately connected with Charles’s death and life, now comes to its final stage in the city most closely associated with the heirs to the bulk of the Burgundian wealth and power, the Habsburgs. On show are some of the most magnificent works created for the court of Charles the Bold (1433-77), who reigned from his father’s death in 1467.
It features paintings by artists patronised by the Burgundian dukes, most notably Roger van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck, textiles including Arras and Tournai tapestries, embroideries, vestments, court costumes and other luxury fabrics, and arms and armour (some tailor-made for Charles). Also included is metalwork and jewellery by Parisian, Bruges and Augsburg goldsmiths, among which are several precious gold chains with jewelled and enamelled pendants of the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded by Charles’s father in 1430. A highlight is the reliquary of St Lambert’s finger presented by the figure of Charles the Bold in his Milanese parade armour, supported by his patron, St George (Charles belonged to the Order of the Garter)—modelled on the figure of the same from Van Eyck’s Van der Paele altarpiece. The reliquary had been commissioned by Charles in 1467 and presented by him to the cathedral in Liège in 1471. Illuminated manuscripts (including Charles’s Book of Hours from the Getty) and other documents, medals and medallions, tableware, plate and ceramics round out the display.
The show is divided into six sections covering: Burgundian court culture; political administration and trade in the mid-15th century; objects directly related to Charles the Bold and Margaret of York; materials relating to the ceremonies of the meeting of the Emperor Frederick III and Charles in Trier in 1473; Charles’s ill-judged gamble on a war with the Swiss Confederation, 1474-77, which brought the break-up of the Valois hegemony with Charles’s death on the battlefield where, plundered, his naked corpse, ravaged by wolves, was later found (one of his favourite jewels, “The Three Brothers”, a setting of three rubies and three diamonds that was looted, eventually found its way into the hands of Elizabeth I, who prized it highly and is shown wearing it in Nicholas Hilliard’s The Ermine Portrait, 1585); and, finally, the Habsburg heritage (Charles’s daughter, Mary, married Maximilian I, bringing the Low Countries into the Habsburg sway).
The exhibition’s extremely well and intelligently designed catalogue has an English edition published by Mercatorfonds (£45, $80 hb ISBN 9789 061538592). Donald Lee
Reliquary of St Lambert’s finger
Glory of the House of Habsburg: the Medals of the German and Austrian Emperors, 1500-1918
Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Maria Theresien-Platz Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 525 240 Website
Liechtenstein Museum
Radiance and Colour: Glass and Porcelain from Two Private Viennese Collections
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 12 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Address: Fürstengasse 1 Vienna 1090
Tel: +43 (0)1 319 57 670 Website
Radiance and Colour: Glass and Porcelain from Two Private Viennese Collections
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 12 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Address: Fürstengasse 1 Vienna 1090
Tel: +43 (0)1 319 57 670 Website
The Entry of the Arts into Bohemia
Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 12 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Fürstengasse 1 Vienna 1090
Tel: +43 (0)1 319 57 670 Website
Rudolf von Habsburg was born in 1552 in Vienna, the eldest son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. He spent his formative years, from the age of 11 to 19, at the stiffly formal court of his uncle, Philip II, King of Spain, an experience that seems to have made him pensive, melancholy, secretive, reserved and aloof. He developed a great love of the arts and (occult) sciences. He succeeded his father as Emperor in 1576 and moved the court to Prague (he was also King of Bohemia, as well as of Hungary and Archduke of Austria) where he created a Wunder- and a Kunstkammer, the former consisting of natural curiosities and specimens, musical instruments, clocks, water works, astrolabes, compasses, telescopes and other scientific instruments, and the latter containing over 2,000 works by such cutting-edge artists as Bartholomäus Spranger, Hans von Aachen, Giambologna, Josef Heintz, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Aegidius Sadeler, and Adrian de Vries, as well as “old masters” such as Dürer and Brueghel. He patronised the botanist Charles de l’Ecluse and the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, and kept a menagerie of exotic animals and botanical gardens. He never married. His reigned was marked by inconclusive wars with the Ottomans and a revolt by his Hungarian subjects, as well as the turmoil brought about by the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Church’s retrenchment. These events came to overwhelm him and, stripped of all power, save the imperial, by his younger brother and successor, Matthias, he died in 1612.
The conventional (and teleological) view has been that while he was a great patron of the arts, he was an inept and disastrous ruler, taking steps that made the Thirty Years War (which saw the complete dispersal of his collections) inevitable. Revisionist views have come to emphasise his far-sightedness in looking to the arts and sciences as means of surmounting theological and ideological differences, his tolerance of Judaism and Protestantism, his backing of the moderate protagonists of the Counter-Reformation and his ambiguous sexuality as modern man avant la lettre.
This exhibition is the fourth in 20 years to have focused on Rudolf II, and each successive show has reconfigured him according to the temper of the times. Collectors and collecting studies, much in fashion in the 1970s and 80s, informed
“Prag um 1600” at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the Villa Hügel, Essen, in 1988-89, while “Rudolf II and Prague” at the Wallenstein Palace and the Prague Castle Museum in 1997 clearly reflected the Czech Republic’s need to assert its European roots and identity, after decades of
occident-phobic and Russophile Soviet domination. (Under communism, Rudolf was portrayed as a fool.) Interestingly, the Prince von und zu Liechtenstein refused to lend works of art to this exhibition in protest at the seizure, first by Czechoslovakia and then by the communists, of his family estates at Valtice and Feltrice in Moravia.
Hard on the heels of the Liechtenstein Biedermeier show at the Pushkin Museum earlier this year, this exhibition may well be another gesture of the House of Liechtenstein’s recent Ostpolitik, underscoring the family’s connections with Eastern Europe and, in this case, emphasising the Liechtenstein hand in Bohemian culture and life.
From around 1597, Rudolf relied on Prince Karl I (1569-1627) to advise and help him to assemble his art collection. (The Emperor made him steward of the imperial household in 1600 and the viceroy of Bohemia in 1622.) The prince himself owned a considerable collection, works from which feature in this show, particularly two works recently acquired and restored: Diana with her Hounds and Two Companions, with Actaeon in the Background, 1602, and the Coronation of the Virgin, 1602, by Joseph Heintz the Elder.
Coronation of the Virgin, 1602 (detail)
Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK
Zoe Leonard: Photographs
Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Photography
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0)1 52 500 Website
Brave New World
Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0)1 52 500 Website
Gender Check
Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Photography
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0)1 52 500 Website
Equality, Dominance and Difference in Eastern European Art Since the 1960s
Dates: 25 Sep 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Museumsplatz 1 Vienna A-1070
Tel: +43 (0)1 52 500 Website
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
Forget Rodin
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Prinz Eugenstrasse 27 Vienna A-1037
Tel: +43 (0)1 7955 7134 Website
Herbert Boeckl
Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Prinz Eugenstrasse 27 Vienna A-1037
Tel: +43 (0)1 7955 7134 Website
Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK)
Rainer Ganahl: Dadalenin
Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Artists in Focus: Liam Gillick
Dates: 20 Oct 09 - 21 Mar 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Jugendschatz und Wunderscherlein: Book Art for Children in Vienna 1890-1938
Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Curious
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Modern (1900-1945)
Design
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Fabled Fabrics: Ottoman Textiles in the MAK
Dates: 1 Jul 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Middle East
Decorative
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Chawan: Tea Bowls
Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Far East
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Schloss Schönbrunn
Trailing Sisi: Carriages, Clothes and Curios of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria
Dates: 9 Sep 09 - 15 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Vienna A-1130
Tel: +43 (0)1 81113 Website
T-B A21, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
Jorge Otero-Pallos: The Ethics of Dust
Dates: 7 Jun 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Himmelpfortgasse 12, 2nd floor Vienna 1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 513 98 56 Website
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