all natural

In all natural. 100 % Collections, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg throws a spotlight on how visual artists since the 1960s have addressed the complex interdependency between humans and their environment.

Showcasing around 130 works by 24 artists from the Generali Foundation Collection, the collection of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, and the Austrian Federal Photography Collection, the exhibition introduces visitors to a range of perspectives on man’s relationship with nature. “The presentation seeks to contribute to the contemporary environmental debate by undertaking a sustained meditation on how we humans see ourselves in relation to nature. We are all aware of the multifaceted interdependency between both sides, and the positions we have selected for the show illustrate how art has reflected this complexity,” Christina Penetsdorfer, curator of the exhibition, explains. Thorsten Sadowsky, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg’s director, adds: “Extending the series of acclaimed exhibitions of art from the collections produced in partnership with the Generali Foundation, all natural also addresses one of the most urgent problems society faces today and provides a platform for wide-ranging discussions.”

If the titular phrase “all natural” and similar labels such as “organic” and, in the German-speaking world, “bio” originally indicated products unadulterated by modern technology, they now more generally signal a mass-marketed contemporary lifestyle promising minimum harm to consumers and their environment. The latter is difficult to square with the rapidly growing global population’s need for energy, sustenance, and goods and the associated rise in CO2 emissions, industrial and agricultural excess production, the depletion of natural resources, factory farming, and overfishing of the seas. The exhibition all natural features works that suggest critical perspectives on man’s ambivalent relationship with nature and his capacity for destruction, as well as art that examines the chains of causes and effects binding humanity to its environment. Some works sketch visions tracing the fine line between utopianism and dystopia, while others draw on natural forms and materials to articulate their concerns. The exhibition concludes with selected positions that employ—synthetic as well as organic—materials and their aesthetic qualities to call idealizing conceptions of both nature and art in question. all natural includes rediscovered treasures and cherished highlights from the collections and, in a first, the most recent new acquisitions.

Works by Sylvie Fleury (1961 Geneva, CH), Simone Forti (1935 Florence, IT—Los Angeles, CA, US), Heinz Frank (1939 Vienna, AT), Adolf Frohner (1934 Großinzersdorf, AT—2007 Vienna, AT), Nilbar Güreş (1977 Istanbul, TR—Istanbul, TR; Vienna, AT), Dan Graham / Robin Hurst (1942 Urbana, IL, US—New York, NY, US), Hans Haacke (1936 Cologne, DE—New York, NY, US), Alex Hay (1930 Valrico, FL, US—Bisbee, AZ, US), Hans Hollein (1934–2014 Vienna, AT), Johanna Kandl (1954 Vienna, AT—Berlin, DE), Gudrun Kampl (1964 Klagenfurt, AT—Vienna, AT), Ulrike Lienbacher (1963 Oberndorf, AT—Salzburg, AT; Vienna, AT), Angelika Loderer (1984 Feldbach, AT—Vienna, AT), Sissi Makovec (1975 Vienna, AT), Luiza Margan (1983 Rijeka, HR—Vienna, AT), Roberto Matta (1911 Santiago de Chile, CL—2002 Civitavecchia, IT), Gordon Matta-Clark (1943—1978 New York, NY, US), Marisa Merz (1926 Turin, IT), Marjetica Potrč (1953 Ljubljana, SI), Florian Pumhösl (1971 Vienna, AT), Annelies Senfter (1980 Lienz, AT—Salzburg, AT), Ingeborg Strobl (1949 Schladming, AT—2017 Vienna, AT), Rob Voerman (1966 Deventer, NL—Arnhem, NL), Lois Weinberger (1947 Stams, AT—Vienna, AT; Gars am Kamp, AT; Innsbruck, AT)

Curator: Christina Penetsdorfer

Presented by Generali Foundation

Also on view:

Asger Jorn
The Prints
until June 30, 2019
Mönchsberg [4]

A twofold premiere: the first comprehensive retrospective of the work of Asger Jorn (1914 Vejrum, DK―1973 Aarhus, DK) in Austria is also the first exhibition outside Denmark to present the artist’s entire printed oeuvre.

Humanity in Photographs
Recent Acquisitions of the Federal Photography Collection
until June 16, 2019
Rupertinum [1] & [2]

The curiosity with which humans observe each other is insatiable. The Museum der Moderne Salzburg brings this presumably universal characteristic into focus in an exhibition that showcases treasures from the Federal Photography Collection.