Time to Relax

Visiting a museum can be tiring. Gladly the Museum of Applied Arts has prepared some beds where the visitors can relax, take a nap, have a look at the beautiful ceiling or just check their phones...

Chinese Contemporary Art #4

With this photo ends our short tour of the exhibition  "中国私语 CHINESE WHISPERS: Recent Art from the Sigg Collection" at the Museum of Applied Arts. In his works Shi Jinsong investigates the sociocultural transformation in China between tradition and modernity in the context of hybridity, synthesis and symbolism. The sculpture "Lack Pine Tree" (2011) is composed of the fragments of trees chopped down around his studio.

Chinese Contemporary Art #2

The monumental chandelier ("Descending Light with A Missing Circle") by Ai Weiwei appears to have fallen to the floor and points to the decay and ruptures of modern society in China. In the 20th century, the colour red, in China traditionally a symbol of luck in all its conflictive facets, became the colour of revolution, progress and political power through the ideology of communism.

Chinese Contemporary Art #1

Yesterday I went to see the exhibition "中国私语 CHINESE WHISPERS: Recent Art from the Sigg Collection" at the Museum of Applied Arts. The collector Uli Sigg has been following the development of contemporary art in China since the late 1970s. In the mid-1990s, he started putting together the world’s most significant and representative collection of Chinese art. In this photo you can see the work "Temporary Actor A" by Liu Ding. The painting can be viewed as a comment on the interpretation of the ideals of aniquity in the display of male and female figures for Maoist propaganda language. (Yes, I copied the label of the painting...)

Geymüllerschlössel #4

After the end of World War II, the ownership of the Geymüllerschlössel went again to the Austrian Natinal Bank which sold it to the Republic of Austria in 1948. In 1965 the villa was incorporated in the Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art (MAK).

Geymüllerschlössel #3

In 1929 the Geymüllerschlössel was mortgaged to the Austrian National Bank. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in March 1938 the heirs of Isidor Mautner (who had died in 1930) lost all civil rights because of being Jewish and were forced to flee the country. The mortgage on the edifice was transferred to the German Reichsbank which seized the building in compensation for the outstanding debt in 1944.

The Fulfillment

In 2012 one of Austria's greatest painters would have celebrated his 150th birthday: Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). On this occasion several Viennese museums are offering special exhibitions throughout the year.

The confectionary Oberlaa honours Klimt by creating a sweet replication of his oeuvre "The Fulfillment" (1905). The original painting is a design drawing for the mosaic frieze in the dining hall of Stoclet Palace in Brussels and can be seen at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Minerva

Today let´s have a look at the mosaic of Roman goddess Minerva on the facade of the Museum of Applied Arts.