Show! Highlights from the Collection

Neue Galerie Graz

English

Show!

Highlights from the Collection 12.04. – 18.08.2024

Neue Galerie Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum Joanneumsviertel, 8010 Graz T +43–316/8017-9100, Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm joanneumsviertel@museum-joanneum.at, www.neuegaleriegraz.at

This text is published on the occasion of the exhibition Show!

Highlights from the Collection Neue Galerie Graz Universalmuseum Joanneum 12.04.– 12.08.2024

Highlights are exceptional works that, through their creation, have led to remarkable moments in art history.

In many cases, however, their special quality is only recognised as such in retrospect, as with Egon Schiele’s work, for example. This means that everything we define as a highlight not only aligns with the art concept of experts, but often also appeals to the taste of a great many people. In other words, these are works that many people like to look at, whose exceptional nature people want to be impressed or amazed by. It is, however, rare that a highlight is created as such. For a multitude of different reasons, it only becomes a highlight through an audience.

The Neue Galerie collects art from 1800 through to the present day, and has a total of over 70,000 works, including – from the very beginning – many paintings, and these are the main focus of this exhibition. The very heterogeneous selection of works, which for reasons of space has had to be limited to around 1% of the whole stock, concentrates on themes that have a significant presence in the collection. These themes are drawn from the canon of art history over the last 200 years.

The ‘classical’ genres of painting – landscape, still life, genre, portrait and body – run as a chronological narrative thread through the rooms. They become a counterpart, a point of comparison and a source of friction for exemplary, later and thus more recent examinations of each theme, in their combination producing a new view of art and world events.

This is a rich array of ‘highlights’ that invite us to look, compare, recognise and see. In juxtaposition, the pictorial worlds are reinforced in their density, the boundaries between them demarcated by magnificent frames, or allowing completely new (ahistorical) perspectives on the collection to

open up. Beyond this the canon of art history – long regarded as rigid and fixed – is broken down.

Today, there is much that needs to be peeled out of the western-centric view of the white male master narrative, and there are gaps and injustices to identify. So how do we look at art today?

What can historical pictures tell us about our own understanding of images? Is it possible to grasp the non-contemporaneous contemporaneously? How much timelessness is to be found in the motifs? Which images from past centuries continue to shape our view today?

Never before in history have so many images been made, shared, archived or published as they are today. But the flood of images in the present can serve as an invisible, subjective starting point and a frame of reference for this largescale show.

Landscape The depiction of a landscape can be many things: dead earth, battlefield, snowy ski resort or idyllic mountain lake. Idealised, composed or springing from the imagination, around 1800 the objective was to promote the life of man in harmony with nature. During the Biedermeier period in the mid-19th century, the landscape became a place of yearning in the urban middle-class parlour.

Climbed and conquered, the Alps became a tourist highlight. For many centuries, the long mountain ranges had been viewed with a sense of fear and dread. However, as people began to travel more at a time of burgeoning industrialisation, they came to be regarded as places of leisure. At lower altitudes for refreshing summer holidays away from the city heat, or up in the high mountains for adventurers, joined at times by brave women wearing floor-length dresses. The mill was chosen as a special motif, not just for its romantic qualities, but also to stand for economic prosperity as a symbol of technical progress.

The railway allowed people to experience the landscape in

motion even before the advent of film. Today, 1000s of reels of trains move across time and space, amplifying movement through the landscape. As industrialisation surged, the human occupation of the landscape also picked up speed. Today it has reached a turning point, so that discussions now focus on the urgent renaturation action needed to prevent biodiversity loss and climate-related disasters. Extremes of weather and the forces of nature not only dominate the images in media reports today, but were already featured in the 19th century as weather effects charged with atmosphere and in the depiction of elemental forces, sometimes providing a moralising climax. The section of landscape shown in a painting focuses the gaze on topography, change, an idealised rural event or a yearning to be satisfied.

Often hidden from view, on the other hand, is the dark side of the pioneering spirit and belief in progress, the hyenas, which as greedy predators can be seen as symbolising unchecked selfish human behaviour, totally without scruples. Or the spilt blood of the decaying dog, which clouds the

view of a supposedly pristine nature. In the midst of the weather warnings, how can we still cling to the idyll?

The landscape also defines home and belonging, acting as a symbol of cultural identity, history and national memory. The Erzberg in Styria is one such iconic place. As an engine of economic growth, during its time of use it has also always possessed a political significance. After the collapse of the monarchy the realistic landscape painting became a German-national topography, which following the Second World War was countered with vehement abstract colour movements.

Nature shifted inwards, manifesting emotional, mental or spiritual retreats, in light, colour and the non-figurative. → In-depth focus audio guide: Lysovenko, Schödlberger, Egner, Fulton, Boeckl, Mader

from an admiration of the grace and diversity of the subjects picked from nature. Frozen in the picture at the instant of its greatest splendour, the transience of the most beautiful moment is all the more evident. The symbolic effect of flowers appears timeless in the use of encoded messages.

Plants and fruit arranged into a composed ensemble are also called ‘nature morte’ – dead nature that gathers together unmoving or lifeless objects. The great attention to detail in 19th-century floral still lifes is striking, while they assemble a variety of flowers that could not possibly exist simultaneously during the course of the year. As a bunch of blooming diversity that withstands botanical decoding, the content is condensed in space and time, creating a timeless bouquet. → In-depth focus audio guide: Lassnig, Baselli, Weibel

Still life

City

Captured by the aesthetic beauty of the blossoms, still lifes of flowers may hold various hidden messages that should not detract

Cityscapes are testimony to the growth of urbanisation, depicting recurring architectural features

such as walls, archways, squares and roof silhouettes, market settings and documented historic buildings. In their colour and mood, they range from the idyllic urban ensemble through to the small market town, whose lanes and alleys can take on a subjective expression of emotion. Big cities are portrayed as densely built-up or alive with hustle and bustle. Sometimes the focus is on the beauty of an interesting building, sometimes its historic significance. A personal connection with the city can create subjective views, like those generated by tourist posters with the aim of enhancing its appeal. In the historical context of wars or uprisings the city becomes a backdrop of devastation and ruin, a symbol of the human power to destroy in the midst of the concentrated civilisation of urbanity.

Urban utopias conjure up images of potential future cityscapes. As machines, underground or modular, they look like the settings of fictional narratives. → In-depth focus audio guide: Alt, Zoff, Schiele, Thöny, Baldessari, Eisler, Lutter

Being foreign From the south of Europe, the upper Adriatic and the health resorts of old Austria, during the 19th century artists began to travel further afield. After studying the antiquities in Rome, they continued across the Mediterranean, to North Africa or the Orient. Enthralled by the light, the land and the people, they often did not transfer their many impressions to the canvas until they had returned to the studio back home. The appeal lay in the unfamiliar, the exotic, and in particular the people, whose skin colour was different. While Europe experienced soaring prosperity due to colonisation, industrialisation, economic growth and the market economy, the conquered and exploited territories also became a source of fascination to be studied. The migration of the exploited and the displaced, sometimes from war zones, situates the visual narrative as genre scenes in deserted, cold landscapes. The mirror of the present reveals the consequences of European arrogance, entangled as global conflict through complex worldwide networks. In transcon-

tinental dimensions of travel, migration and experiencing the world, a new facet is added to the view from the outside of one’s ‘own’. What is interesting for ‘others’ about ‘our culture’ beyond touristy, flawlessly marketed high culture? What actually remains of our ‘own’ at a distance? → In-depth knowledge audio guide: Blau, Raffalt, Seyfferth, Neshat, Dauood, Wenger, Liu Xiadong

Images of people Social issues are examined in foreign cultures, but also within our own social fabric. Scenes of everyday life are known as ‘genre paintings’ in art. Dancing and lively settings at the inn are just as much a part of this as domestic scenes. During the Biedermeier period these scenes were presented as particularly idyllic.

Depictions of poverty aim to raise moral questions of sharing and giving in a Christian farmhouse in order to evoke empathy and compassion among the urban bourgeoisie. The supposed happiness of the farmer’s family portrayed also seeks to reinforce the family as a place of cohesion, character-

ised by the mother’s joy, which seems to be the greatest happiness in the world. It is no longer the holy Mother of God who is idolised as a pictorial motif, but the simple woman from the countryside, whose only task in life seems to be working hard for the well-being of her brood of children. It is no coincidence that the ‘Mother’s Joy’ became a popular motif during the Biedermeier period. This was the time when domesticity became a concept and women were encouraged to devote themselves wholly to raising children and family life. This idealised notion still cements many women today in gender roles that are considered perfect for children’s upbringing. In contrast to this we find portraits of women immortalised as elegant ladies, fashion-conscious and stylish. Artistic self-portraits, which are based on a process of self-examination, also tell us a lot about the position of the artist.

Portraits of leading political figures are another major section – in the case of communist leaders, they are even posthumously staged as pop stars.

→ In-depth focus audio guide: Waldmüller, Paladino, Plavcak, Amerling

Body At the Academy of Fine Arts, studies of nudes were a compulsory course during training. The goal was to carefully examine proportions and movement sequences by drawing the nude model. Although women posed as nude models, they were not permitted to take part in drawing nudes as artists, and so were denied entry to the academy altogether until 1920. In the few examples preserved in the collection, they studied their own bodies in the mirror. The male view of the naked female body was very different at this time. Dominated by erotic urges, the motifs appear like a culinary selection. However, in Actionism the body also becomes more object than subject, itself mutating into material.

As a medium of art and so also a symbol of torn, damaged or tortured identities. The body is no longer interesting in terms of its agility, but rather as the essence of living flesh that becomes a sacrificial offering. Then the idyll

can also be transformed into a bloodbath.

Following the Second World War, the feminist movements of the early 20th century also became the theme of emancipating artists who ironised and criticised conventional gender roles and patriarchal power structures, above all exposing and making them visible. In Pop Art, the body becomes a surface, a subject suitable for advertising, to dissolve into the data bundle as a human of the present. → In-depth focus audio guide: Koch-Langentreu, Brus, Calle, Zeppel-Sperl, Katz, Kriesche

End With the transformation of the body into an picture support and means of painting, the medium was reinvented. The material, texture and appearance of the paint become central. The white exhibition space becomes a surface where the form and content of the image can be interrogated.

Lines and gestures, the representation of the brushwork, the sculptural paint, the possibilities of painting as a play on the prop-

erties of the material. But the public can also join in and become sculptures themselves. In the art-immanent viewing context, the viewers not only become part of the narrative, but are also reflected back on themselves. → In-depth focus audio guide: Kupelwieser, Wurm, Ulrichs

Accompanying programme (in German)

16.07., 23.07., 30.07., 06.08., 13.08.

Kuratorenführungen

1-2-3er Atelier Workshop für Kinder von 8 bis 12 Jahren, samstags, 14–16 Uhr 20.04., 18.05., 15.06.

Ausstellungsrundgänge Sonntag, 14 Uhr 14.04., 21.04., 28.04., 05.05., 12.05., 02.06., 23.06., 07.07., 14.07., 28.07., 04.08.

Familienrundgang zum Mitmachen Samstag, 25.05., 13 Uhr Samstag, 29.06., 13 Uhr

Guided tours in English Every Sunday, 11 am, except 19.05., 09.06., 21.07.

Rundgang in Gebärdensprache und Einfacher Sprache Mobile induktive Höranlage vorhanden Samstag, 22.06., 11 Uhr Rundgang in Einfacher Sprache Mobile induktive Höranlage vorhanden Mittwoch, 03.07., 16:30 Filtercafé Kaffee & Kunst, freitags, 15–17 Uhr 19. April, Highlight 21. Juni, Niveau Bildzeit Wir nehmen uns Zeit für ein Bild, Mittwoch, 17.04., 17–17:30 Uhr Mal-Dienstag Komm vorbei ins offene Atelier! für alle von 4-99 Jahren (Kinder nur in Begleitung von Erwachsenen), dienstags, 10–17 Uhr

→ Audio guide

Curator Günther Holler-Schuster Text Monika Holzer-Kernbichler Translation Kate Howlett-Jones Graphical concept and design Lichtwitz – Büro für visuelle Kommunikation Layout & proofreading Karin Buol-Wischenau