Abstract Loop Austria

With Abstract Loop Austria, the 21er Haus is dedicating its first exhibition of the year to the constructive and concrete artistic trends in post-war Austria, which have often been overlooked. The display will be a concentrated group exhibition focusing on four Austrian artists: Marc Adrian, Richard Kriesche, Helga Philipp and Gerwald Rockenschaub. In order to give the show a broader international scope, works by Josef Albers, Marina Apollonio, François Morellet, Uli Pohl and many more will be featured.

The foundation for the constructive, concrete art of post-war Austria had been laid by the radical ideas of modernism (Wiener Kreis, twelve-tone music) at the beginning of the 20th century, the rejection of the figurative tendencies of Austrian expressionism and the more general notion of a new beginning after the end of the Second World War.

Almost 50 years later, these approaches are returning to the 21er Haus, thereby drawing attention to a generation of artists who were—and are—an important source of inspiration.

By means of a concentrated juxtaposition of works by Marc Adrian, Richard Kriesche and Helga Philipp, Abstract Loop Austria demonstrates how Austria made an important contribution to Constructivist and Op Art in the late 1950s, the 1960s and 1970s, and how Gerwald Rockenschaub has continued this tradition in the next generation of artists, bringing it into postmodernism and the present day.

The exhibition is curated by Axel Köhne.


Presentation of the catalogue raisonné about Marc Adrian​
April 2016
Marc Adrian (1930–2008) was one of the most outstanding Austrian artists of the post-war, dissenting, international neo-avant-garde. As an all-rounder, he invented new pictorial worlds and worked as a sculptor, painter, graphic artist, filmmaker, photographer and author. In the series of Belvedere catalogue raisonnés, a total of 800 works by Marc Adrian are documented, spanning both media and genres, with a substantial proportion of this work being published for the first time.

Edgar Knoop - subway 813
January 28–March 28, 2016
21er Haus

A solo exhibition on German colour theorist and concrete artist Edgar Knoop complements the extensive show on Op Art at the 21er Haus, in celebration of the artist’s donation to the museum. The show presents works from the 1970s until the present day. Knoop’s scientific examination of colour theory—the phenomenon of light and mathematical reflections on form, has inspired his artistic expression. Questioning the reliability of scientific insights into colour and light—he draws the attention to the psychological origin of perception. The so called “kinetic light objects” emerge when the viewers moves around the object.

Rück - Blick: Kinetika 1967
April 7–June 30, 2016
21er Haus

At the same time as Abstract Loop Austria, a reconstruction of the influential Kinetika exhibition from 1967 will be shown at the 21er Haus. 50 years have passed since the Kinetika exhibition was initiated by former director Werner Hofmann at the Viennese Museum of the Twentieth Century or 20er Haus, today’s 21er Haus. The show brought international artists to Vienna, whose work was at the time described as Op Art or Kinetic Art.

Edgar Knoop - subway 813 and Kinetika 1967 are curated by Harald Krejci.

CUBISM – CONSTRUCTIVISM – FORM ART
March 10–June 19, 2016
Lower Belvedere

Around 1900 the concept of form became the basis for a wide variety of non-representational, often ornamental art. The exhibition CUBISM – CONSTRUCTIVISM – FORM ART explores intellectual constellations and traditions in science, philosophy and art during the late Habsburg Monarchy, drawing together an entire cultural region. The show illustrates the continuities and unique characteristics of art in Austria-Hungary. This will be the first exhibition to explore the common foundations that linked artistic tendencies in the Habsburg Empire and led to the genesis of non-representational art. It features an unprecedented array of prominent works that shed new light on the region’s art by adopting an uncommon perspective.

The exhibition is curated by Alexander Klee.