Freitag, 29.03.2024 08:15 Uhr

Great collection alive again

Verantwortlicher Autor: Nadejda Komendantova Vienna, 27.02.2021, 20:26 Uhr
Nachricht/Bericht: +++ Kunst, Kultur und Musik +++ Bericht 6563x gelesen

Vienna [ENA] What unifies art collectors? Passion to beauty? Desire to keep it for eternity? Wish to safeguard fragile masterpieces for future generations? Willingness to influence with the pieces of arts our time, perceptions and discourses? I guess all these questions are true for a real art lover who spends days and nights while studying history of various cultural movements.

Those who save funds from everyday need to be able to acquire another masterpiece for his collection. Those for whom collecting pieces of arts becomes much more than simply a job or a business. Those for whom it becomes meaning of life, a true love, a real passion. The willingness to give young artists a chance to get a name, to start exhibit their works, to enter into a circular of recognition. This willingness was driving Agnes Schömer and Karlheinz Essl when they started their collection. Young people got to know each other in New York where they were already active in the arts science. This was the birth of one of the most important collections of modern arts in Austria. Driven by a dream, Agnes and Karlheinz managed to realize it.

They managed to organize their own museum which did not only exhibited the works of young artists but also became a real center of modern arts in Austria, a real magnet for all who loves and values modern arts. However, the wheel of fortune was not only smiling to this couple. Chain of various financial crises, including the global crisis of 2008 threatened the existence of the Essl Museum. The museum could have been saved if the public hand would have taken it over. However a comprehensive public opinion survey showed that the preferences were for a new highway rather than for investment which would be needed to save the museum.

This was one of the most sorrowful days for people who used to spend their time in this museum, for whom this museum became a meaning of live, for those for whom it was a source of inspiration. With hard heart I watched when the Museum Essl opened its doors for guests the last time. A couple of years passed by. The museum stood closed. The modern arts science was missing. The weekends spent in the museum with friends while visiting Essl exhibitions, joining workshops or enjoying performances left an empty space in the heart and were unfilled. But suddenly in the middle of pandemic crises a happy news was spread.

The news which came very timely during the period when culture became silent, when museums got closed, when cultural performances got canceled. And this news was that the museum lives again. It stands up like a bird phoenix out of the ashes. And it was a double, or triple happy news. Because Vienna became a new museum. Albertina Modern. And because museum opened again after pandemic related lockdown. And because the Essl collection was moving into Albertina Modern.

Walking through the exhibition I recognized several masterpieces which were previously at the exhibition in the Essl museum in Klosterneuburg. They were greeting me like the old friends. Here they are - colorful paintings of Fang Lijun reminding about exhibitions of international arts in Essl museum, or sharp shapes of the paintings of Alex Katz, or mysterious installations of Annette Messager, or sorrowful videos of Bill Viola. It is certainly worth visiting Albertina Modern. It will be a day of colors, strong emotions, impressions from various parts of the world, a lot of food for thoughts. One thing what this day will not be. It will not be boring. The exhibition is open until the 25th of April 2021.

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