The pioneering achievement of the artists of the Viennese fin de siècle - above all Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka - lay in their intensive exploration of the human body. Vienna around 1900 had a passionate desire to look beneath the surface in a wide variety of disciplines; Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis was omnipresent. Unperturbed by the social conventions of their time, artists explored the elementary functions of life, shedding light on the broad spectrum of sexual desire as well as experiences such as pregnancy, birth, death and the physical manifestations of mental illness. These pioneering achievements of Viennese early modernism have no contemporary parallels in other countries and continue to influence artists to the present day.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Viennese Actionism saw a more extreme and very specific further development of the artistic concerns of Vienna around 1900, with the works of Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl in particular placing the body itself at the centre of their work. They not only triggered changes in Austrian post-war society, but also attracted great international attention due to their powerful and radical mode of expression. The upcoming exhibition continues this concept and spans the arc to artists such as Arnulf Rainer, Franz West and Elke Silvia Krystufek.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Viennese Actionism saw a more extreme and very specific further development of the artistic concerns of Vienna around 1900, with the works of Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl in particular placing the body itself at the centre of their work. They not only triggered changes in Austrian post-war society, but also attracted great international attention due to their powerful and radical mode of expression. The upcoming exhibition continues this concept and spans the arc to artists such as Arnulf Rainer, Franz West and Elke Silvia Krystufek.