"Passion for Art" 35th Anniversary of the Essl Museum Collection

Written by Kal Raustiala Monday, 26 September 2011 21:35

Vienna, Austria - To mark the 35th anniversary of their collection, Agnes and Karlheinz Essl are presenting the unique jubilee show "PASSION FOR ART".  From more than 6,000 art works, curator Karlheinz Essl has selected more than 400 works by 160 internationally renowned artists – ranging from major works held in the collection to new acquisitions never before displayed.  Both exhibition venues, the Essl Museum and the Schömer-Haus, will be used for the exhibition, with a total of 4500 m² of exhibition space.  This makes the exhibition the largest since the inauguration of the Essl Museum in November 1999.  On exhibition until 28 August, 2007.

In selecting the themes for the show, the collector avoids a traditional arrangement of works according to criteria of style, collecting history or art history.  Controversial dialogues, perplexities and ruptures open up new and surprising views of art.

One of the most spectacular recent acquisitions is >DARK WAVE<. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco had a 15-metre long whale skeleton cast full-size and completely covered it with concentric circles drawn in graphite.  This impressive work conveys elementary natural forces and will be put into a context with works by Anselm Kiefer, Antoni Tàpies and Georg Baselitz at the exhibition.

Other themes are based on the focuses of the collection or involve a playfully passionate handling of contemporary art, for example >CIRCLE ROOM < or > GALLERY SEX<.  >THE NEWS IN PICTURES<, art in times of social and political upheaval, offers a broad range of artistic approaches.  From a visionary picture by Jörg Immendorff from 1980 on the fall of the Wall, reactions by artists from Central and South-East Europe to the wars of the 1990s, to Jake and Dinos Chapman’s powerfully imaged examination of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Surprisingly, one of the collection’s major artists, Hermann Nitsch, will not be shown in the familiar context of Actionism. In the theme section entitled >INTOXICATED WITH COLOUR<, his sensual, powerfully colored painting enters into a dialogue with works by Josef Mikl, Sam Francis and Gerhard Richter.

On show at the nearby Schömer-Haus, some eighty works take a refreshing look at art under the title >ANIMALS DREAM<: Ducks, dogs, horses, buffalo calves and giraffes by such artists as Siegfried Anzinger, Georg Baselitz, Alfred Kubin and Katrin Plavcak.

The themes of the exhibition: THE NEWS IN PICTURES, HOME SWEET HOME, CIRCLE ROOM BODILY EXISTENCE, GALLERY SEX, INTOXICATED WITH COLOUR, ROOM OF TRANQUILITY, DÉJÀ VU, ROOM FOR NATURE, AMUSING - AND YET ART, THE SOUND OF THE WAVE, ANIMALS DREAM.

Four artistic interventions on site react directly to the space and architecture of the Essl Museum: Esther Stocker designs the stair-well, Elke Krystufek is on show in one gallery, and Beat Zoderer carries out the acoustic installation >VON HIRSCHEN UND RÖHREN< (“Of stags and roaring pipes”) together with Karlheinz Essl jr. for the rotunda, Heiko Höfer and Alexander Nickl create image projections on the façade of the Essl Museum for the opening of PASSION FOR ART.

As part of PASSION FOR ART, the Essl Museum will be showing two photo series in the Kleiner Saal of the exhibition hall: >THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS< by Damien Hirst  / David Bailey presents a disturbing, taboo-breaking interpretation of the Way of the Cross.  Paul McCarthy’s >TOKYO SANTA< takes over from this presentation on 01/06; a photo series of the artist’s performance as Santa Claus (until 07/10/07).

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive catalogue published by Edition Sammlung Essl. Three volumes, one on the history of the collection and two on the exhibition.  With essays by Agnes and Karlheinz Essl, Francesco Bonami, Wieland Schmied, Andreas Felber, Gottfried Knapp and Sara Smidt Bill.

Visit the ESSL MUSEUM – CONTEMPORARY ART - An der Donau-Au 1, A-3400 Klosterneuburg / Vienna - www.essl.museum