International Art News

From Oct 25, 2011 until Mar 4, 2012 – Lower Belvedere
The Belvedere owns the world’s largest collection of paintings by Gustav Klimt. In autumn 2011, it will present this world-famous artist together with the congenial architect and designer Josef Hoffmann. Their intense collaboration, such in the Beethoven Exhibition at the Vienna Secession (1902) and the Stoclet Palace in Brussels (1905-12), set new standards in Europe when it comes to the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Numerous works, such as Klimt’s Portrait of Fritza Riedler, which clearly reflects Hoffmann’s characteristic hand, attest to the two pioneers’ mutual influence, which in this comprehensive exhibition is also explored with regard to their involvement in the Wiener Werkstätte.

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22 June to 25 September 2011 – Orangery, Lower Belvedere
The focus of this exhibition is on Josef Danhauser (1805-1845), the storyteller. Danhauser was unrivalled when it came to translating the content of literary text, be it of a historical, religious, or purely narrative nature, into pictorial ‘language’. Spectators are thus enabled to extract entire stories from his pictures, provided that they are willing to look closely. Gestures, facial expressions, and movements are the vehicle of these pictorial narratives; there is a lot of humour and daring satire behind them, while they particularly rely on the close observation of people and the capability of visualising minor human flaws in a pointed or maybe even exaggerated manner. William Hogarth’s series The Rake’s Progress and Marriage à la mode, with their narrative wealth, rich allusions, and sharp wit, had a great impact on Josef Danhauser. Danhauser was to refer to them throughout his life, using his models in a subtle and discrete manner for his own compositions. They provided the basis of his most important works, such as The Rich Debaucher, The Soup for the Poor, and The Reading of the Will.

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VALIE EXPORT Salzburg cycle 01-12, 2001 © VBK, Vienna 2010 Digital photography b/w photography 72 x 59 cm Photo © Archive VALIE EXPORT

16 October 2010 to 30 January 2011 – Lower Belvedere
The Belvedere and the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz are compiling a comprehensive exhibition on one of Austria’s internationally most renowned media artists. In the course her work of more than four decades, VALIE EXPORT has realized a sizable and consistent oeuvre by employing such modes of expression as performance, photography, film, and media installation. EXPORT was both celebrated and vehemently criticized for her feminist orientation and her tireless fight for an unbiased and gender-neutral assessment of themes addressed by the media. The show focuses on EXPORT’s conceptual approach, which always starts out from the human body and revolves around the communicative and cultural codifications related to it.
The show, which will be presented simultaneously in both museums, will offer a comprehensive insight into the artist’s œuvre as a whole.
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Flaming June, 1895

Until the 3rd of October – Lower Belvedere
The members of the group of artists, founded in 1848, in London called the Pre-Raphaelites were most consistent in pursuing or renewing the arts compared with official Victorian art. At the tail end of the 19th century their art ended up in international symbolism and Art Nouveau amid the increasing symbolism of the collection of pictures.

The exhibition presents major works of the Pre-Raphaelite masters Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and Sir John Everett Millais.
Frederic Leighton’s Flaming June, one of the most well-known paintings in art history, and five, in part, monumental, major works by Edward Burne-Jones, are the highlight of this exhibition.

With the support of the young Rossetti, William Morris, Walter Crane and Burne-Jones created a picture sequence after Thomas Malory’s Arthur legend. Three works created in this connection by Burne-Jones – one of which is more than six metres wide – can be seen at the  Belvedere Show as well as his picture sequence Sleeping Beauty, which was completed in 1873.
The exhibition contains a collection of pictures of the start of the modern trend which, to date, has attracted little attention in Austria, and allows visual scouting trips through the presentation worlds of individual major proponents of the Pre-Raphaelites and the major topics at the tail end of the 19th century.

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