Exhibitions 2013

Paul T. Frankl
A Viennese Designer in New York and Los Angeles

Opening and Book Presentation on Friday, October 4, 2013 at 7 p.m.
Exhibition: October 5, 2013 to February 1, 2014
E x t e n d e d  until March 1, 2014

Exhibition Talk with Ruth Hanisch in the course of the Vienna Art Week 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013 at 5 p.m.

Paul T. Frankl (1886-1958) shaped like no other the design of American Modernism. In the mid-twenties he succeeded in New York with his “skyscraper” furniture and design gallery. As of 1934 he designed apartments for the high society in Hollywood. Paul T. Frankl is scarcely known in Austria – the exhibition aims to recall him and his oeuvre into the cultural memory of his hometown!

Curators: Christopher Long and Laura McGuire

- " Der Geschmacksverstärker " ( Profil, 45/2013, article in German )

- " Mann der Moderne " ( AD Architectural Digest, online, article in German )

- " Der Avantgardist " ( Ärzte Woche, 14. November 2013, article in German )

- " Wiener Wolkenkratzer " ( The Gap, online, article in German )

Booklet here

Breton Duchamp Kiesler
Surreal Space 1947

Opening: February 26, 2013 at 7 p.m.
Exhibition: February 27 till May 11, 2013
E x t e n d e d  until September 21 due to great success!

To demonstrate the unbroken vitality of surrealism André Breton and Marcel Duchamp conceptualized the "Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme" in 1947 and invited Frederick Kiesler to participate as architect, artist and mediator in this event. Over 200 works from more than 100 artists were united in the Parisian Gallery Maeght. The exhibition design implemented in the "Salle de Superstition" (Room of Superstitions), "Salle de Pluie" (Rain Room) or the "Dédale" (Labyrinth) as "Parade Spirituelle" (Spiritual Parade), is tightly linked to the concept of surrealism and sets a milestone in the evolution of art (re-)presentation.

This fulminant survey of the surrealistic movement after the Second World War was intended to be presented by means of a photographic documentation in New York in 1948 – a project that was never realized. Original prints from the archives enable the Kiesler Foundation to make up for this omission 65 years later and to show for the first time a reconstruction of the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Vienna. Accompanying the exhibition a booklet including explanatory text material (Ger./Engl.) and numerous illustrations will be published.

Curated by Eva Kraus
With loans from Julius Hummel

Booklet here

Cooperations with other museums:


The Map. Artistic Migrations and the Cold War
at Zachęta — National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, from November 29, 2013 to February 9, 2014 

The exhibition presents a dynamic map of the post-WWII art world in the context of Polish artists’ and art critics’ travels to Europe and beyond. The time frame — arbitrarily adopted — begins in 1947 (the moment of intense cultural exchange, primarily with France, under an official scholarship programme) and ends in 1959 (the height of the ‘expansion’ of Thaw-era Polish modernism in the West).

Adolf Loos: Our Contemporary
at Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia University, New York,
from November 11 to December 10, 2013

Curated by Yehuda Safran

Vienna Berlin. The Art of Two Cities. From Schiele to Grosz
at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, from October 24, 2013 to January 27, 2014

In their first major themed exhibition together, the Berlinische Galerie and the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere will show key works of modern art from Vienna and Berlin ranging from the Secessions via Expressionism to New Objectivity. Masterpieces from both collections will combine with lesser-known specimens to create a panoramic insight into the vibrant exchange between these two metropolitan hubs in the early 20th century.

Much is already known about the links between these two cities in the fields of literature, theatre and music, but the dialogue between Vienna and Berlin around classical modernism in art has rarely been explored. This themed exhibition of some 200 works seeks to redress the oversight. It opens with the formation of the Secessions, whose champions turned their backs on academic style to negotiate new positions between art nouveau and late impressionism. The dawn of modernism is reflected on both sides in a quest for new tools of expression, but while the Berlin Secessionists around Max Liebermann took a growing interest in everyday reality and made a theme of the urban experience, Viennese artists around Gustav Klimt and Koloman Moser sought their style in ornamental forms, often associated with the language of symbolism. Nevertheless, it is evident from the many exhibitions of the day that there was a constant flow of exchange and that they were well aware of each other’s work.

In the 1910s, as a new generation of Expressionists emerged in the form of artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the Danubian capital was gradually ousted from its leadership role in the fine arts by its recent but aspiring German counterpart. Young Austrian artists such as Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele stepped out of Klimt’s shadow, presenting their avant-garde work to a more open-minded yet critical audience in Berlin. Art dealers and essayists such as Paul Cassirer, Herwarth Walden and Karl Kraus were equally at home in the art communities of both cities and built a close network of contacts, enabling many artists to settle in Berlin, especially after the Great War.

With the post-war decline of the Danubian monarchy and the death of important artists like Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, the Viennese art world faded from international view during the 1920s and 1930s. While Dada, Verism and New Objectivity rigorously confronted new political and social realities in Berlin, such engagements were now rare in the Austrian capital.

At the same time, Vienna witnessed quite independent phenomena, such as kineticism with its utopian visions and avant-garde idiom. There were also some specifically Austrian interpretations of New Objectivity, largely but unjustly ignored in the past. While they reflect links with Berlin and the work of an Otto Dix or George Grosz, they are influenced just as much by the Viennese tradition of psychological art.

When Friedrich Kiesler organised his “International Exhibition of New Theatre Technology” in 1924, the Austrian capital once again became a magnet for the avant-garde. Finally, tribute is paid to exhibition organiser and art historian Hans Tietze, a historic figure almost unknown in Germany, whose call for “lively art history” inspired the exhibition “Vienna Berlin: The Art of Two Cities”.

Curated by Ralf Burmeister

Wifredo Lam Retrospective in reconstruction of 1940s designs by Frederick Kiesler
Galerie Gmurzynska bei der Frieze Masters 2013, London, 17. bis 20. Oktober 2013

At Frieze Masters in London Galerie Gmurzynska presents a solo exhibition of the works of modern master Wifredo Lam. The works will be situated in quoting reproductions of environments designed by Frederick Kiesler in the 1940s.

Frederick Kiesler - El escenario explota  
at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, from October 3, 2013 to January 12, 2014

An exhibition of the Casa Encendida, Madrid, in collaboration with the Austrian Theatre Museum, Vienna, and Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, in cooperation with the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna. Curated by Barbara Lesák

Additionally the Casa Encendida presents from October 3 to November 3, 2013
the photo exhibition Kiesler - Cara a cara con la vanguardia, which was
well received at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna in 2010.

Accompanying to the exhibitions, La Casa Encendida shows a film program called 100% Cinema every Tuesday in October and November. All the dates and the program:

Tue, October 8, 2013:   "Der Sieger" (1922) by Walter Ruttmann, "Ballet Mécanique" (1924) by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, "One A.M." (1916) by Charles Chaplin, "The fall of the House of Usher" (1928) by James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber, "Witch's cradle" (1943) by Maya Deren

Tue, October 15, 2013: "Dreams That Money Can Buy" (1947) by Hans Richter

Tue, October 22, 2013: "8x8" (1957) by Hans Richter

Tue, October 29, 2013: "Two Projects by Frederick Kiesler" (2009) by Heinz Emigholz, "Koolhaas HouseLife" (2008) by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine

Tue, November 5, 2013: "Minhocão" (2010) by Raphaël Grisey, "Reconversão" (2012) by Thom Andersen

Tue, November 12, 2013: "Adebar" (1957) by Peter Kubelka, "Arnulf Rainer" (1960) by Peter Kubelka, "Passage Through: A Ritual" (1990) by Stan Brakhage

Tue, November 19, 2013: "La Région Centrale" (1971) by Michael Snow

Tue, November 26, 2013: Performance: "Los disparates: ¿Quién pondrá el cascabel al gato?" by Bruce McClure

Théâtres en utopie
at Saline Royale d'Arc et Senans, France, from June 22, 2013 to March 30, 2013

Josef Hoffmann – Friedrich Kiesler
Contemporary Art Applied 
at Josef Hoffmann Museum, Brtnice, from May 28 to October 27, 2013

The exhibition “Josef Hoffmann – Friedrich Kiesler: Contemporary Art Applied“ presents the furniture and interior designs of Josef Hoffmann in juxtaposition to the complex and versatile work of Frederick Kiesler. It is already the seventh time that the Josef Hoffmann Museum in Brtnice is hosting a joint exhibition project between the Moravian Gallery in Brno and the MAK in Vienna devoted to the influence of Hoffmann and his works on important artists and architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation and is presenting Kiesler’s works for the first time in the Czech Republic.

The early oeuvre of Frederick Kiesler (Czernowitz 1890-1965 New York) in Vienna is marked by works for the theater. Following on from his great success in the “Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik” (International Exhibition of New Theatre Techniques) in 1924 in the Vienna Konzerthaus, for which he conceived the “Raumbühne” (Space Stage) and the “Leger- und Trägersystem” (L+T System, a flexible montage system for presenting objects and paintings), Josef Hoffmann invited him to design the Austrian theater section for the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (1925) in Paris. This commission turned out to be the beginning of Kiesler’s international career as an artist, designer, architect, and stage designer. The interest for his monumental floating structure “Raumstadt” (City in Space) developed as a result of this was such that Kiesler was invited to take part in the “International Theater Exposition” in the Steinway Building in New York (1926).

Drawings, photographs, and models from the years 1924 to 1940 give an impression of Frederick Kiesler’s development as a furniture artist. Kiesler became a designer of complete interiors, which materialize as model spaces of Modernism, and created remarkable objects on the borderline between utility furnishings and art objects, such as the “Nesting Tables” (ca. 1935), which can also be correspondingly presented as works of art. They invite comparison with the radical reductionism in Hoffmann’s early furniture design (“Brettlstil”, “slat style”, “Einfache Möbel”, 1901). Kiesler’s ambition to blend artistic genres and to understand “creative work” as a form of “technology” bequeaths a modernity to Kiesler’s work idea and justifies its renewed integration into contemporary design production.

A cooperation of the Moravian Gallery in Brno, the MAK, Vienna and the
Kiesler Foundation Vienna. Curated by Rainald Franz

Finissage on Sunday, October 13
with a lecture by Christopher Long: "Four Viennese and Modern American Design: The Hoffmanns, Kiesler, and Frankl" (See MAK On Tour)

THE SCENERY EXPLODES
Frederick Kiesler - Architect and Visionary Theatre Designer
at Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, from March 21 to June 23, 2013

An exhibition of Museum Villa Stuck in collaboration with the Austrian Theatre Museum, Vienna, and La Casa Encendida, Madrid, in cooperation with the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna. Curated by Barbara Lesák

GEO – NEO – POST
at Museum Vasarely, Budapest, from February 2 to April 28, 2013

The exhibition title is inspired by the definition of “Central European Constructivism” including the sober architecture of Adolf Loos as well as the immaterial experiments of László Moholy-Nagy. The presentation combines works of Austrian and Hungarian contemporary artists from different generations who maintain a common discourse. The works by Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965) and Viktor Vasarely (1906-1997) represent historic initials that enabled the development of European constructivist art and shape it significantly to this day.

Curated by Pía Jardí and Júlia N. Mészáros