Franz Plunder, born in 1891 in Bregenz, was a trained and multiple award-winning sculptor who in 1923 made headlines when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a sailing boat, the “Sowitasgoht V”, which he built himself. From then on not only did he switch back and forth between the two professions of sculptor and boatbuilder, but also between the locations of Bregenz and the USA. An exhibition about a fascinating personality whose biography also comprises quite a few mysterious episodes. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.

Guided tours: Sun, 6 Apr, 15.00, Sun, 25 May, 11.00: Family tour, Sun, 29 Jun, 11.00: Over 60s tour, Sun, 27 Jul, 15.00, Thu, 7 Aug, 18.00, Sun, 21 Sep, 15.00, Sun, 16 Nov, 15.00

Whenever there is a festive occasion in Vorarlberg, you can bet there’ll be at least one brass band. Hardly any reception, jubilee or bigger celebration in villages and towns is held without a brass band. On top of that, the brass bands also organize concerts and music events … In Vorarlberg, some 6,000 musicians play in 130 groups, meet regularly for practice sessions, prepare for competitions and perform on weekends at all kinds of occasions. The exhibition features stories about people who shaped brass music in Vorarlberg and today are still committed to helping keep this tradition alive. In co-operation with Vorarlberger Blasmusikverband, the regional brass music association that celebrates its 100^th anniversary in 2024.

How did the people of Vorarlberg live in centuries past? For the second time, the second floor of the museum opens five windows into time, and provides insight into Vorarlberg’s history. Objects from the Bronze Age to the present illustrate religious beliefs and rituals surrounding death. The similarities between the different religions are as striking as the forms of commemoration such as the commemorative image made of the hair of a deceased woman or the animal urn on display.

500 years after the Great Peasants‘ War, the installation reminds visitors of revolt and subjugation, demands for justice and their violent suppression. At its centre stands Marko Lehanka’s “Bauernsäule” – a peasants’ column – in dialogue with Albrecht Dürer‘s design for a “Siegessäule für die Besiegten,” a memorial to the peasants’ war. Documents and stories from Vorarlberg, from complaints about serfdom to the legend of the “Henkeychen,” give this remembrance a regional character. An engagement with history, art and power.

An installation in the vorarlberg museum‘s atrium in co-operation with Kunsthaus Bregenz

The Vorarlberg artist Miriam Prantl created the light installation Colours/Lights/Lake for the staircase featuring a gentle play of colours that reflects different light atmospheres at Lake Constance. The railing is equipped with LED strip lights whose upward light movement corresponds to the programming of seven light boxes in the stairwell. Slowing down, calming down, contemplation – the effect of the colours and the light attune visitors for the exhibition.  

www.miriamprantl.com

Brigantium in the 1st Century A.D. 

A forum the size of a football pitch, an ancient Roman spa, the craft and trade quarter at the Tschermakgarten in Bregenz – the public and private buildings of Brigantium dating from the first century A.D. all fire up your imagination. Was Bregenz a city during the time of the Romans? There is a lot to suggest that it was, but no clear evidence to confirm this. Following the much praised exhibition Romans or ...?, Cosmopolitan City or ...? is all about living together in Brigantium. Who used this place? Who lived here? Did they have an administration as well as a fiscal and social system? How was the economic and religious life organised? Based on the most recent scientific findings and archaeological finds, the exhibition invites museum visitors to speculate in a well-informed manner about Brigantium, its residents and visitors.

Insights into the Collection

Our collection comprises close to 160,000 objects from the fields of archaeology, art, everyday culture and history. The exhibition showcases very important and, at first glance, also less important objects from the museum’s rich holdings in alphabetical order. It starts with the letter “A” for “angelica-mad,” showing engravings by the artist Angelika Kauffmann, and ends with the letter “Z” for “zahla” (to pay), which features the hoard of coins found at Sonderberg Castle. In between schnapps glasses, self-portraits by Edmund Kalb, pommels, the estates of Fritz Krcal and Kundeyt Surdum, priest’s vestments, herbariums …

A boxing ring in the museum’s atrium? It serves as the backdrop for the interdisciplinary dance project “Perfect Match” by Silvia Salzmann that explores domestic violence. The performance shows how quickly relationships reach their tipping point, how familiar situations disintegrate and how difficult it is to end a partnership. The stage is unstable, unfair from the outset. In this fragile setting, dance and live music clash with physical intensity. Furniture slips away, lurches back and forth, tips over. Things lose their balance. Closeness becomes dangerous. A relationship falls apart. A project by Silvia Salzmann in co-operation with the ifs violence prevention project StoP, Nikola Furtenbach (performances 6 and 27 March, see also event series “Straight Talk in the Ring”) 

Ten personal stories let us see World War II as a global occurrence. An Indian nurse, a field cook from Kenya, a Japanese soldier, a Philippine guerilla leader or a Crimea Tatar woman deported by Stalin – they all tell their stories of war, loss and hope. Their voices converge through photos, maps, archived material and sound recordings to weave a complex story. The exhibition shows how people from different continents experienced and remembered World War II – beyond European perspectives and familiar cultures of remembrance. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.

How do we deal with the Nazi past today? The exhibition shows how thoroughly art and culture were a platform for ideology as a means of spell-binding the population – and how much of it worked on after 1945. Historically burdened objects from the museum and public spaces reveal previously little-noticed aspects of Vorarlberg’s history. One focus is on Nazi objects from private households that still surface today and raise questions about what to do with them, their origin and their meaning. “Remembrance – a Work in Progress” invites museum visitors to critically view these objects and start to talk about an alert culture of remembrance. 
With the guest contribution “Disposing of Hitler” from the House of Austrian History 

Delphina Burtscher grew up on a remote farm in the valley Großes Walsertal. In 1944 the 18-year old secretly helped her deserter brothers Willi and Leonhard and her fiancé Martin, who hid in the forest until they were betrayed by a neighbour and arrested – shortly before her first child was born; Willi and Martin were executed, Leonhard was able to escape. The exhibition revolves around Delphina: a family’s mementos, searching through photos for information, historical documents and voices from today also raise fundamental questions: What motivated someone to desert? What contribution did women like Delphina make back then? And how do her grandchildren remember their “Omile” (granny) today? The exhibition will be accompanied by a graphic novel. 

Browsing, playing, couchsurfing, meeting friends, starting a conversation … Make yourself at home in our Parlour. And “ghörig” at that. “Ghörig” has a number of meanings in the Vorarlberg dialect. For the Parlour, it means: open, diverse, connecting – when listening, sharing one’s opinion and being together. Whether you need a break during your tour of the museum or a respite from daily life – the Ghörige Stube*, our new room on the fourth floor, is open for you from 7 February. For the current Parlour programme, please check vorarlbergmuseum.at/veranstaltungen

Free admission