The new programme of modern and contemporary art exhibitions has begun in early 2012. It presents three different types of exhibition:
Artist Curators
Once a year beginning in 2012, a renowned international artist will be invited to select an exhibition of works from the Kunsthistorisches Museum's collections.
The familiar historical display of the museum will be temporarily disrupted, revealing unfamiliar aspects of familiar objects by altering their position and context. Such exhibitions will also serve to illuminate the artist's own work, and the thinking and decisions that lie behind it. A programme of educational events will accompany each exhibition.
September 25 – December 2, 2012: Ed Ruscha. The Ancients Stole All Our Great Ideas
Modern Masters
Once a year beginning in 2013, a major monographic exhibition of a renowned modern or contemporary artist will be presented at the museum.
These exhibitions will be conceived with the museum's collections in mind, and will focus primarily on international artists that have not previously exhibited in Austria. Fully illustrated scholarly publications and a programme of educational events will accompany each exhibition. The collaboration with partner institutions is an important aspect of the exhibition programme. In addition to those mentioned below, future collaborations with the Louvre, Paris, and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, are also planned.
October 8, 2013 – January 6, 2014: Lucian Freud (with Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid)
November 2014 - February 2015: Joseph Cornell (with The National Gallery, London)
The Theseus Temple
Several times a year beginning in 2012, single work of contemporary art will be exhibited within the Theseus Temple, in the Volksgarten. The temple was built between 1819 and 1823 specifically to house a work of then-contemporary art: Antonio Canova's masterpiece Theseus Slaying the Centaur.
The sculpture was subsequently moved, in 1890, to the newly-completed Kunsthistorisches Museum, where it remains to this day on the museum's monumental staircase. Beginning in 2012, a series of focused exhibitions will return the building to its original purpose: to house remarkable works by contemporary artists, one at a time. A specific theme will connect each series of works presented at the Temple, both to each other and to the historical collections of Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Upcoming exhibition:
Richard Wright
April 18 – September 30, 2013
For all current information on our exhibitions of modern and contemporary art please visit our exhibition calendar.