Body Space. The collections

Body Space. The collections
September 17, 2024 – February 2, 2025
Mönchsberg, level 3

The exhibition is a thematic sequel to the show Breaking Down Walls!, which opened in the spring, and reflects the insights of the intellectual movement known as the spatial turn, which emphasizes the vital importance of space or the idea of space as an analytical instrument. Its focus is not on an architectonic conception of space that can be measured by length times width times height, but on space as a phenomenon shaped by society.

Continuity and change are defining features of the exhibition. The major thematic divisions of the earlier installation remain in place, and key works like Marjetica Potrč’s Rural Studio: The Butterfly House, Martin Walde’s Raumbeule / Transportable Hole, and Renée Green’s Space Poem #5 are still on view. The chapter on artists’ spaces unlocks a new aspect of space. Meanwhile, a wide variety of new works demonstrate in very different ways how space, body, and media condition one another. They zoom in on interfaces, in-between spaces, areas of transition, and social and political criteria and expand the museum space by integrating spaces of action, experience, and recollection as well as creative thinking. In addition to works by representatives of classic modernism like Edvard Munch or Kurt Schwitters and surprising rediscoveries, the show turns the spotlight on rarely-seen works and contemporary and young positions.

With works by Annemarie Avramidis, Anatoliy Babiychuk, Günter Brus, Georg Eisler, Sylvie Fleury, Jari Genser, Johannes Gierlinger, Bruno Gironcoli, Birke Gorm, Renée Green, Elisabeth Grübl, Ilse Haider, Barbara Holub, Max Klinger, Robert Klemmer, Gustav Klimt, Käthe Kollwitz, Aglaia Konrad, Eva Kot'átková, Richard Kratochwill, Dorit Margreiter, Edvard Munch, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Monika Pichler, Walter Pichler, Margot Pilz, Johann Pollhammer, Marjetica Potrč, Lois Renner, Annerose Riedl, Martha Rosler, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Egon Schiele, Kurt Schwitters, Thomas Stimm, Norbert Trummer, Werkstatt Rixdorfer Drucke, Martin Walde, Nikolaus Walter, Andreas Werner, and Stephen Willats.