vorarlberg museum
15 06 - 06 10 2019

Angelika Kauffmann Museum Schwarzenberg
16 06 - 03 11 2019

You have heard of Angelika Kauffmann? Sure! But certainly a major part of what is shown in this exhibition is unknown to the public. Private collectors from Vorarlberg, some of them for the very first time, show their paintings, drawings and graphic reproductions created by the famous artist. The curator Bettina Baumgärtel even managed to track down many works believed to have been lost forever. The exhibition is complemented by high-profile items on loan from public collections such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Angelika Kauffmann (1741 – 1807) was a pioneer for the art of classicism. Her overwhelming success made her a myth in her own time. After Dessau 2017, the exhibition is now shown in the vorarlberg museum and in the Angelika Kauffmann Museum in Schwarzenberg.

In cooperation with the UNESCO World Heritage Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz in Saxony-Anhalt, the Angelika Kauffmann Museum Schwarzenberg and the Angelika Kauffmann Research Project (AKRP).

Kombi.Ticket: vorarlberg museum & Angelika Kauffmann Museum Schwarzenberg: 13 Euro regular/ 11 Euro reduced

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After Roman troops conquered the Lake Constance region around 15 B.C., they romanized the area step by step. In Bregenz, they created a military base, and at the same time, a village, including a bridge over the Rhine, developed in Eschenz, located in today’s Swiss Canton Thurgau. More than 120 big farms cultivated the fertile land around the villages, which were connected by a dense network of roads and waterway transport routes. On these routes, numerous – to some extent new – goods and ideas came to the area around Lake Constance. The settlements grew fast and approximately 80 years after the region was conquered, Bregenz had a number of representative stone buildings: a forum, thermae, temples, residential buildings and quarters. The exhibition illustrates this era with all its various facets. Numerous finds provide an in-depth insight into the everyday life of that time.

Until now, this touring exhibition on recent Vorarlberg architecture and crafts has been shown in close to 30 cities around the world. Curated by Wolfgang Fiel, Getting Things Done will be shown one last time before the vorarlberg museum puts it into its collection. 230 projects offer a comprehensive overview of the development of what has been labelled the Vorarlberger Bauschule (Vorarlberg School of Building), from its origins in the late 1950s to the present day. Photographs, plans, texts, and interviews allow the visitor to retrace the steps of this success story: A combination of innovative architects and clients, a good understanding of local materials and the quality of the landscape, liberal building regulations and the value placed on tradition and innovative crafts.

For Rudolf Wacker (1893 – 1939), the war never came to an end. The 1st of August 1914, the day he departed from Bregenz and went to war, and the 14th of September 1920, the day he returned to Bregenz after five years as a prisoner of war in Siberia, remained the two most important days in the life of this painter. The exhibition illustrates how Wacker became an artist in the Siberian camp, and what impact the war and imprisonment had on his life and work. A large selection of paintings, drawings, photographs and personal documents provide a varied and lively image of the painter, who is one of the most important Austrian representatives of New Objectivity. In cooperation with the Franz Michael Felder Archiv of the Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek.

What exactly remains of the once so powerful Roman Empire? It is this question that the Austrian photo artist Alfred Seiland (born 1952) deals with in his major photographic project Imperium Romanum. He has been documenting architectural and scenic traces of the Roman ancient world around the Mediterranean and in adjacent regions since 2006. The project is focused on how the people living today treat the historic places and what modern civilisation, as well as ageing and weathering processes, do to the ruins of the ancient world. In his photographic works, Alfred Seiland covers areas of tension between historical capital and contemporary commercialisation, between preservation by museums and use or wear by tourists and between conservation and destruction of the ancient heritage.

Today, the sunburnt wooden huts and barns, nestled up against the idyllic slopes of the Montafon region, are a recreation place where many long to be. However, they used to be hard work for farmers: They cleared the forests, built huts and moved with their herds to where there was enough grass so as to spare the pastures in the valley. Today, pictures of idyllic mountain huts overlay this historical background. How were these pictures made? Who produces and diffuses them? To what extent does the idyll match the experience of the real world? What do these mountain huts stand for today? The artists Bernhard Garnicnig, Matthias Garnitschnig, Claudia Larcher and Tobias Maximilian Schnell moved into an artist residence on a mountain hut in the Montafon and dealt with these questions in their work.

A cooperation of KAIROS, the vorarlberg museum, the Montafon Museums and the ORF Vorarlberg (Austrian state television and radio).

With this exhibition, Christoph Lissy thanks his fathers. Who are the fathers of a sculptor who grew up without a father and wanted to become a concert pianist? Among them are Ludwig van Beethoven, whose music deeply touched and consoled him, the musician Miles Davis, the writer William S. Burroughs or the sculptor Bruno Gironcoli, who was his professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In the atrium of the vorarlberg museum, the Hörbranz-based artist presents eight father figures in the form of monumental painting sculptures to say thank you for inspiring and keeping him grounded. Quotations and everyday objects referring to each figure integrate the works into an inspiring context.

On the occasion of the memorial year 2018, the multimedia exhibition project showcases one aspect of the First World War – the countless church bells which were removed and melted for the war industry. It is only the loss of the bell that reveals its meaning for a community and its people. The exhibition project not only takes an unusual look at the home front but also uses a new method in history education. Virtual reality glasses allow visitors to revive the past in a sensual experience.

This virtual experience was created in cooperation with ixxy, rootinteractive and attic sound Brighton/UK.