A Klimt from 1885 and a work from two years ago. Czechoslovak cubism and Latvian transgressive art. Serbian paintings from 1970 and Austrian abstraction from the 90s. An amalgamation of styles and countries that the Leopold Museum in Vienna opens this Wednesday as a meeting of distant relatives who do not know each other despite being related.
Just like that, Unknown relativesis the name of the exhibition of 200 pieces from six collections from four different countries whose common link is that they all come from the funds of companies that are part of one of the largest insurance multinationals in Europe.
As a meeting of “second cousins” spread throughout Europe sums up EFE This shows one of its curators, Vanessa Joan Müller.
Cousins, he says, who are part of a big family and who have something in common, but who have never met before.
The exhibition does not focus on any specific artist, period or style but rather explores, in no chronological order, the rich collections of these company collections that, for the first time, are shown together in this format, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Wiener Städtischeone of the group’s main insurers.
Müller recognizes that shaping this exhibition has been a certain challenge because the 200 works, by 94 artists, presented cover 150 years of the history of painting, from a female portrait completed by Gustav Klimt in 1885, to New Fiery Communitya mural that the Austrian Barbara Kapusta painted in 2022.
“But we made a conscious decision to show the entire spectrum and then we looked at where the focus of each of the collections was,” says the expert.
In the process, count Müllerit was seen how well surrealism or cubism “cooperated” and how the past of art is seen from the present was used as a link.
The exhibition draws on the collections of companies from Austria, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Latvia that are part of the multinational Vienna Insurance Group.
The tour through the four rooms of the exhibition has no marked beginning or end. Visitors can choose where to start their journey through periods, styles and countries.
A few meters away they hang Lady with straw hata 1922 piece by the Czech Antonín Procházka between cubism and surrealism, and another lady with hat (1900) in which the classical academicism of Vojtěch Hynais It assumes impressionistic nuances.
Abstract art pieces and photo montages about the murder of Kennedy. Paintings reminiscent of pop art and fantastic landscapes. Members of the Vienna Secession, such as Kokoschka either Egger-Lienzwith young Austrian painters.
The idea of this mix, points out the curator, is that pieces created in very different contexts and periods are seen face to face, opening the possibility for visitors to now contemplate them from different perspectives.
In fact, Müller He assures that it is an unusual way of exhibiting in a museum, in which chronological patterns have not been followed or direct relationships established between periods.
The exhibition can be visited at the Leopold Museum until October 6.
Source: EFE
