When dialogue became
interconnected with today’s problems…
The aim of the show, start with a question: what’s your emotions or your problems?
With the exhibition “Edvard Munch. In Dialogue”, the Albertina Museum in Vienna was marking his third exhibition about the Norwegian artist in less then 20 years.
This time, the curators Dieter Buchhart (Curator of the exhibition) and Antonia Hoerschelmann (Curator of the ALBERTINA) are presenting one of the masters of modern art in dialogue with a group of contemporary artists.
While the show unfolds thematically, each artist is invoked in a separate room, separating them from the original works of Munch. The artists of those rooms are: Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Georg Baselitz, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin and Peter Doig.
How relevant a dialogue can be? And how important it might be on the artists, the visitors or even the curators choice?
With the exhibition “Edvard Munch. In Dialogue”, the curators decided to focus and create a group of 60 works focusing on his later oeuvre and how they can be relevant today. From themes such as puberty, adulthood, sexuality, landscape and our perception of ourself, the oeuvre of Munch do resonate with us.
While the first room of the exhibition showcase well-known oeuvre of the artist, I was quite disappointed to find out that the “artists rooms” were actually separate from the oeuvre of Munch.
For instance, the dialogue between the Munch version and the one of the Swiss artist Miriam Cahn was quite important.
When the Norwegian artist decided to create this version between 1895 and 1896, it was the last version of a series of five painted version of the Madonna, also referred to as Loving Woman or Conception, in addition to numerous color lithographs.
With this last version, the women is composed in a compact format on a light background. While the artist only uses oil paint for her black hair, the red aureole behind the head, the mouth, and her eyes, the artist will experiment with thinly applied spray paint for the flesh, made with liquid oil paint and turpentine.
Almost 100 years after, the Swiss artist Miriam Cahn actualise the figure while keeping the narrow format of the composition and the use of fluid paint. While the oeuvre of the artist mostly focus around the present-day socio-political themes, feminist and gender question, the Madone is described as a female, full of emotions, scared of her body which “might not fit” in today’s standard.
Colors of emotions
If I was the curator of this exhibition, I would keep an eye on the title “Edvard Munch. In Dialogue” was for me, and for most of my friends who visit the show a kind of aesthetic or thematic comparison, where you juxtapose works of arts. Sadly, the present show does not do that.
To repair this kind of mistake, I would turn the exhibition into “Edvard Munch, colors of emotions”. For many reasons; the first one being that colors, in his oeuvre and in all of the oeuvre of the contemporary artists played an important role into decoding the emotions and the themes of the pictures. From the use of black and blue tones for more private pictures, to softer colors for sensual pictures and bright one for happy endings.
Thus, the show will be made much more relatable in term of compositions of the groups of works but also by juxtaposing them directly next to teach other and not by separating them.
The second thing I would change is the disposition of the rooms. Most of them are made chronologically, on a grey or white wall. To embrace the viewer into the emotions of the picture, the light need to be more focus on the works, while the walls should be more colourful and intimate.
Finally, I'm asking myself why the museum as done so any exhibitions about Edvard Munch. I don't see a lot of connection between Edvard Munch and Vienna during his life, or his career. I don’t see a lot of work by him in museums or cultural institutions of Austria. Im quite afraid to say that it might be a “trend” more then just a nice exhibition to look at… and, to be honest, there we more people in the collection room than the exhibition.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Abertina
Date: 18.2.2022 – 19.6.2022
Curator: Dieter Buchhart and Antonia Hoerschelmann
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Albertina
The Albertina Museum
Albertinaplatz 1
1010 Vienna
Phone: +43 1 534 83 0
Fax: +41 61 206 62 52
Mail: info@albertina.at