Mumok Vienna
July 29th 2019
This is a stunning building regardless of what is inside it. It is in the marvellous Museum Quarter (the old stables apparently) and the two key parts are the two Ludwig Museums in the courtyard – large rectangular buildings – very solid and tbh rather unfriendly to look at from the outside, particularly Mumok as you can see from the pictures with this posting (an earlier posting has some video which gives some senses of the whole environment I hope), but once you are inside (I am talking of Mumok specifically now) it is a wonderful space with galleries on the four sides of the building and the central area with two sets of lifts with all innards on display. It’s an extravagant use of space but a wonderful one.
There are 5 exhibitions on at the moment:
· Vertigo
· Pattern and Decoration. Ornament as a promise
· Nikita Kadan. Project of Ruins
· Frederick Kiesler. Endless House
I only went to Vertigo and Pattern and Decoration. I looked briefly at the others but they did not ‘click’ – although this was after |I had been there some time and so I may well have been ‘arted out’; it happens.
So Vertigo: https://www.mumok.at/de/node/31835
This was on three levels and the first one was mildly interesting – consisting of ‘traditional’ art – a little representational but much abstract playing on the idea of visual illusion. There was Bridget Riley (of course) and two from Vasarely (Douglas Allan, Penny Pi)– but not particularly interesting ones I felt. Some intriguing early drawings playing with perspective too and the spacious layout meant that one could move around the images and not feel cramped. I also liked the idea of having the image on the main display area but the name, title and all information on the edge of the free-standing display wall as this meant that you had to look at the work purely on its own without knowledge or preconceptions about who it was by/what it was called. I have not seen this before and it has the additional benefit that while you are reading the information you are not blocking someone else’s view of the art.
The second floor was much more radical with installations using light and other media – and again going back in time showing that artists have been playing with images for as long as there have been artists creating images. There was a sense of wonder in this section which I greatly enjoyed. The video on the link gives a very good idea of the range of work and the medium means that the more technologically sophisticated work can be seen and appreciated better than by simply using words.
Next Pattern and Decoration: https://www.mumok.at/de/node/31831
This could not be more of a contrast with the preceding – which was presumably why it was selected. This (very short-lived) American movement used wonderfully vivid colours and a remarkably wide range of media and materials to create gloriously extravagant art, both abstract and representational where colour and glitter was a great important. There was a strong camp element in it, I felt.
This place is somewhere to where I will definitely return when in Vienna snd I am very glad I built in a free day in my visit here – made it even more worthwhile and having the time available meant that I could explore and find new places to go.