Art News

Vienna Hosts its Seventh Annual Art Week in November

artwork: Pieter Bruegel the Elder - "Hunters in the Snow (Winter)", 1565  - Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. On view in "Winter's Tale - Winter representations in European art of Bruegel to Beuys". A special guided tour of this exhibition is one of the events in the Art Vienna Week from November 14th to 20th.


Vienna.- Under the umbrella theme “Reflecting Reality” the Vienna Art Week 2011 – initiated by the Dorotheum and conceived by the Art Cluster Vienna – extends its format through interdisciplinary communication strategies concerned with the exchange of art and science, and focuses on Vienna’s world reputation as city of psychoanalysis. From November 14th to 20th, for the seventh time international museum directors, curators, critics and artists meet with personalities from the Viennese art scene in order to exchange views on current trends in the arts and art discourse.

“Through its intensive concentration on the program and thanks to the enormous commitment of all its participants, the Vienna Art Week successfully sets lasting impulses and standards for Vienna as international metropolis of art. We can already draw this interim conclusion on the occasion of our seventh edition following the enthusiastic feedback from international collectors, curators, art critics, artists and the increasing number of visiting art lovers,” as Robert Punkenhofer, the Artistic Director of Vienna Art Week, and Martin Böhm, President of Art Cluster Vienna, are delighted to say. In 2011, Viennese art institutions, fairs and galleries as well as numerous off-scene program partners of the Art Cluster Vienna surprise with an exciting program. The spectrum ranges from special guided tours of special exhibitions via the Gallery Weekend, panel discussions, lectures and extensive artists’ talks, exhibition openings, installations, interventions and performances through to selected events in private enterprises that promote contemporary art. This year for the first time ever, four Viennese design offices open their gates for the Vienna Art Week 2011.

artwork: Gustav Klimt - "The Bride (Unfinished)", 1917 - Oil on canvas - 166 x 190 cm. - Private collection. On view at the Belvedere Vienna in "Gustav Klimt / Josef Hoffmann - Pioneers of Modernism".

The federal studios of the Austrian Ministry for Culture and the Arts (BMUKK) participate for the second time and the meanwhile legendary Studio Visits and many other highlights invite with an inspiring and creative ambience to network and to exchange for a whole week. In the contributions of Reflecting Reality, the view is directed behind the backdrops of the psychological dynamics of art production and collectors’ passion. The idea of psychoanalysis has experienced an amazing upswing in art in recent years. In the field of tension between cutting-edge individual, psychic and social issues in art, new aesthetic practices have developed with regard to Sigmund Freud’s classical psychoanalysis and his writings on art and culture. The psycho-dynamics that art releases are among its most fascinating qualities: not only does art reflect reality, but it also provides material to deal with the requirements of modern life. Individuality and social relations, the private sphere and public life, the transience of everyday life and the striving for stability, closeness and distance as well as performance and relaxation constitute poles of psychic happening. Art subjects the current upheaval of political systems, the development of parallel worlds and the growth in “psycho-political” argumentation spaces to reflection and analysis.

“Reflecting Reality – The Reality Models of Art”, the exhibition curated by Ursula Maria Probst, freelance curator, and Robert Punkenhofer, Artistic Director of the Vienna Art Week, (November 15th to November 20th), focuses on site-specific installations that are located at the intersection between institution and public space and form various models of reality. The perception, the sensing and the questioning of reality as reflexive experience are essential components and important impulses of art production. New research findings in neuro-science reveal striking connections between the brain’s functioning and the construction of the world in models. Not only perception, but also our assessment of reality takes place through modeling. We do not see and experience the world as it is, but we construct it on the basis of models. Today, scientific and artistic knowledge acquisition are involved in an animated exchange. The aesthetic and thematic ranges of artistic access to reality are now exemplified in media- and genre-crossing methods and in strategies to employ extraordinary materials and psychic principles of organization. On show are installations by Roger Hiorns, Iwajla Klinke, Manu Luksch, Joseph Kosuth, Edgar Honetschläger, Elisabeth von Samsonow. The opening takes place on Monday, November 14th at 5:00 p.m. in the Sigmund Freud Museum,

artwork: Curt Stenvert - "The Longing", 1973/74 - Oil on wood fiber board - 49.5 x 89 cm. Collection of the Belvedere, Vienna © VBK, Vienna 2011. - On view in "Curt Stenvert". A special guided tour is one of the events in the Art Vienna Week

Art institutions participating in the Vienna Art Week include the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Albertina Museum, the Austrian Film Museum, Association of Austrian Galleries of Modern Art, Architekturzentrum Wien, the Belvedere Museum, Dorotheum auction house, Essl Museum, Jewish Museum Vienna, the Kunsthalle Wien, Kunst Haus Wein, Leopold Museum, MUMOK, Sigmund Freud Museum, Thyssen Bornemisza Contemporary Art and many others. Special project are being organised by magazines and galleries through the city. Visit the art week’s website at … http://viennaartweek.com