On to new beginnings

The exhibition takes visitors on a fast-paced journey through 20th-century art in Austria. Around 150 works by 30 artists from important private collections show how three key periods shaped contemporary visual and formal language in Austria: the years from 1908 to the end of World War I, the first decade after World War II, and the 1990s.

The first section of the exhibition highlights the period from the 1908 art exhibition to 1918, when Vienna was not only the fifth largest city in the world, but also one of the cultural and intellectual centers of Europe. For the generation of artists surrounding Egon Schiele, this meant a new understanding of human beings, who were recognized beyond their facades in their constraints and fragility.

The years following World War II were marked by a spirit of optimism. New avant-garde movements emerged under difficult conditions. Paris and New York served as catalysts for Surrealism and became starting points for abstraction and action painting. The young generation of artists of this period, including Arnulf Rainer, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and Maria Lassnig, became hugely influential for the rest of the 20th century.

The 1990s, the third decade after the fall of the Iron Curtain, brought a new, united Europe. It was the period just before the great breakthrough of the Internet, and everything seemed possible. Genres and movements coexisted side by side, with Peter Kogler's computer-animated image systems and Eva Schlegel's painterly, blurred photographs encountering Elke Silvia Krystufek's excessive self-questioning and Erwin Wurm's “One Minute Sculptures.”

The works on display are provided by private collections such as Rudolf Leopold, Jenö Eisenberger, Roman and Margot Fuchs, Peter Infeld, Ernst Ploil, and Helmut Zambo, as well as the Angerlehner and Liaunig private museums. Some of them are on public display for the first time.

The artists include Kurt Absolon, Josef Bauer, Arik Brauer, Anton Faistauer, Johann Fruhmann, Ernst Fuchs, Oskar Gawell, Richard Gerstl, Dorothee Golz, Carry Hauser, Matthias Herrmann, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Wolfgang Hutter, Herwig Kempinger, Gustav Klimt, Peter Kogler, Oskar Kokoschka, Broncia Koller-Pinell, Brigitte Kowanz, Elke Silvia Krystufek, Alfred Kubin, Maximilian Kurzweil, Maria Lassnig, Anton Lehmden, Max Mayrshofer, Koloman Moser, Muntean/Rosenblum, Oswald Oberhuber, Walter Obholzer, Florentina Pakosta, Josef Karl Rädler, Arnulf Rainer, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Romana Scheffknecht, Egon Schiele, Eva Schlegel, Hans Staudacher, Curt Stenvert, Olga Wisinger-Florian, Erwin Wurm, and Heimo Zobernig.

Curators: Christian Bauer, Günther Oberhollenzer