MUMOK Reopens With New Exhibition from its Permanent Collection

Written by Candice Bergstrom Thursday, 16 February 2012 19:22

Vienna, Austria - On the 9th of September Karola Kraus will be re-opening the MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien with her “Museum of Desires” and thus ushering in a new era on the 10th anniversary of the institution in the MuseumsQuartier. After renovations and rebuilding by the Austrian architects Ortner & Ortner and the installation of a cinema by Heimo Zobernig and Michael Wallraff the museum relaunch will begin with a focussed programme and a new appearance. "Museum of Desires" will remain on view through January 8th 2012. The Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK) stands for open and innovative interaction with modern and contemporary art. The exceptional collection and the pioneering exhibitions and events have given the museum an excellent international reputation so that compared to larger institutions it is a jewel.

"With the “Museum of Desires”, my first large presentation, I want to send a signal about the collection and the exhibition strategy for the museum in the coming years,” said Director Karola Kraus who has been in office since 1 October 2010. In her first exhibition Karola Kraus will be presenting her subjective point of view of the MUMOK’s nine-thousand-work collection on all of its levels. In the process she focuses attention on a selection of key works and work groups. These are structured according to chronology and content and feature pioneers of modernism, continuing on up to the most recent positions. In amongst the exhibits from the collection there are works that the museum would like to acquire in the coming years. More than thirty works by internationally acclaimed artists—including Dan Flavin, Fred Sandback, Ray Johnson, Robert Barry, Henryk Stazewski, Geta Bratescu, Isa Genzken, Cindy Sherman, Louise Lawler and Monika Sosnowska — have been selected by Karola Kraus so as to supplement existing collection focal points and set new accents for the future. The “objects of desire” have been loaned by galleries and collectors for the duration of the exhibition. Patrons and supporters are being encouraged to help the MUMOK gratify its desires and thus enable the museum to continue to fulfil is responsibilities in regard to its core mission—collecting—despite dwindling public funds for acquisitions.

Following up on past “wish” exhibitions such as the legendary “Museum of Our Wishes” by Pontus Hultén at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (1963-1964, 2009) and the one in the Ludwig Museum Köln by Kasper König (2001), Karola Kraus links in her initial exhibition innovative presentational forms with goals which are proactive in relation to acquisition strategy. Her curatorial signature takes the foreground along with her vision of presenting the museum as a lively and open institution. “This show sends out a number of signals. On the one hand I consider it important to further expand the collection. On the other hand I would like to show large scale monographic exhibitions and subject-related group shows that enter into a dialogue with the collection. The “desires” are intended to fill gaps in the collection, especially in the areas of minimal and conceptual art, but also to underline our intention to give more attention to the acquisition of positions in contemporary art. For example, I wish for monument for V. Tatlin (1964), one of Dan Flavin’s seminal works, in order to provide a historical basis for the works by the artist which are already in the collection. We also want a work by Fred Sandback, a further artist who is central to minimal art and not yet represented in the collection. Furthermore I would like to integrate the most important pioneer of conceptual art, Marcel Broodthaers, into the collection thus closing a large gap. Cindy Sherman and Louise Lawler are pioneering artists in the area of new media whose works are still available on the market at affordable prices. In addition, we would like to acquire works by younger artists such as Thomasz Kowalski, Marzena Nowak or Christian Mayer. With the "Museum of Desires" my first concern is to show the direction in which our collection should go and, of course, I very much hope that many of our wishes will come true,” says Karola Kraus.

The MUMOK (Museum für Moderne Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) is Austria's largest and most significant museum for contemporary art. First opened in 1962 as the Museum of the 20th Century in the Schweizergarten park, the MUMOK is now at its third address and with its third name (regularly moving to accommodate its expanding collection). MUMOK’s commitment to both history and the present and its museological, scientific and educational mission demands its profound engagement in the collection, research and communication of international artworks of modernism, the recent past, and the the present. With its emphasis on Pop Art and Photorealism, taken from the Austrian Ludwig Foundation, Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme, taken from the Hahn Collection, and Viennese Actionism, MUMOK offers a unique blend of art focusing on society and reality as well as of performative art of the 20th century. MUMOK communicates the social relevance of art by illustrating the changes in art perception and their causes, both historical and contemporary. With reference to the present, MUMOK participates in the socio-political discourse and opposes tendencies which challenge the freedom of art and cultural policy. The collection spans from the Cubist, Futurist, and Surrealist works of classical modernism to Pop Art, Fluxus, and Nouveau Realism from the 1960s and 1970s. The early 20th century is represented with paintings and sculptures by masters Like Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti.

The collection includes important works of Pop Art by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein as well as definitive examples of Fluxus, and conceptual art, In recent years, the collection has been expanded with present-day film, video, photo and graphic art. In total, the MUMOK collection contains around 9,700 works: paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings, graphic works, photos, videos, films, architectural models and furniture from the first half of the 20th century. The collection of Classic Modernism contains the most important movements and artists of the heroic years of modernism right up to the abstract and expressive tendencies of the post World War II period. Expressionism (Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff), Cubism and Futurism (Henri Laurens, Giacomo Balla), constructive tendencies, Bauhaus (Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee) are represented as are important works from the areas of Dada and Surrealism (Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Max Ernst, René Magritte). Amongst the pioneering works of modernism to be found are André Derain’s Cowering Figure and František Kupka’s Nocturne, two of the earliest examples of conscious abstraction. The great ‘lone warriors’ who were committed to the human figure such as Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon are represented with outstanding works and form an antipole to the abstractionists of the 50’s (Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Morris Louis, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni). Nouveau Réalisme is one of the focal points of the Hahn collection which was acquired by MUMOK in 1978, and the collection includes important works by Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and Jacques de la Villeglé. César, Mimmo Rotella, Georg Baselitz, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Gérard Deschamps and Christo. Equally important in the collection are works from the Fluxus movement. Alongside numerous important works of Viennese Actionism the museum also holds extensive documentation in the MUMOK’s archive of actionism. A younger generation of artists is showcased in the 'MUMOKFactory', a separate exhibition space with a cinema, where the emphasis is on experimental media and performance art and several exhibition levels are used for special exhibitions. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mumok.at

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