Schiele, Klimt, Kokoschka and Viennese friends at The MART

Written by Steven Hinojosa Friday, 04 March 2011 00:35

Rovereto, Italy - Egon Schiele died in 1918 at the age of just 28, but his “eternal” painting continues to fascinate and enchant the public, today as it did yesterday.  The “Schiele, Klimt, Kokoschka and Viennese friends” exhibition at the Mart in Rovereto ( Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto ) presents over 120 works from Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, and other prestigious Austrian and German museums, comprising paintings, drawings and sculptures, many of which never exhibited before in Italy, illustrating the life and work of Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918), one of the most celebrated exponents of expressionist art.  On Exhibition until 8^th January 2007.

This is a major opportunity to explore the development of the great Austrian artist, but also to learn about the cultural setting of Vienna at the turn of the last century, through the works of the group of artists who, with Schiele, helped renew modern art.  Gustav Klimt (1862 – 1918), Schiele’s friend and mentor, is certainly a central figure for the artistic development of the young Schiele.  Klimt was his teacher, and Schiele drew inspiration from him, although soon abandoning the former’s undulating lines decorated with gold and plant motifs in favour of a cruder, harder realism expressed above all through portraits and nudes.

Egon Schiele frequented the Viennese Academy of Figurative Arts, but left after a short while in the wake of disagreements with his teachers.  In 1909, with 15 course companions, including Anton Faistauer and Robin Christian Andersen, he founded the Neukunstgruppe(New Art Group).  The cultural setting in which the young Schiele lived and worked – presented in this exhibition – offers a new overview of his work, proposing interesting comparisons with the artistic production of his contemporaries.  These are his friends, also working in the avantgarde movement, such as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Anton Faistauer, Anton Kolig, Carl Moll, Koloman Moser, Max Oppenheimer and Anton Peschka, who were to accompany him in his artistic development, starting with the Jugendstil and later “opening out” into Viennese expressionism.

“Art cannot be modern, because it is eternal”... Egon Schiele

The Mart exhibition, curated by Tobias G. Natter and Thomas Sharman under the direction of Gabriella Belli, ends with a section dedicated to the 49th Exhibition of the Viennese Sezession of March 1918, in which Egon Schiele, just a few months away from his premature death in the Spanish Flu epidemic, gained major success and critical recognition.  The Trentino in those years was, thanks to its location in ‘Mitteleuropa’, strongly influenced by the cultural ferments of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and there was a lively exchange with the artistic culture of Vienna.  The Schiele, Klimt, Kokoschka and Viennese friends exhibition thus finds an ideal venue in the Rovereto Mart.

Mart = Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto.  Mart is a cultural laboratory.  The museum does not only preserve and exhibit works of art. It is also a center for scientific research.  More than 80,000 documents, manuscripts, drawings and photograph account for the historical archives of Mart.  The 60,000 volumes in the library - books, catalogues, magazines - reconstruct the culture of the XXth Century, with a focus on the futurist movement and its leaders, on the avant-gardes and the research on the relationships between body and images.  The main fields of research, at Mart, are the International Center for Studies on Futurism (CISF), the Archive of Documents on Contemporary Artists (ADAC), the Archive of New Writings (ANS) and the International Centre of Dance (CID).

Mart is not just a museum, but also a research centre, exhibition venue and congress centre.  It is also a location in which to meet, become acquainted and hold discussions.  Visit www.mart.trento.it