MUMOK: Why pictures now

So.. it took me some time (approx. three and a half years) but finally I visited a museum in Vienna. Shame on me for waiting that long.

It was the Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition was called “Why pictures now“. We started with the lowest floor and worked ourself through eight floors. The first two where staffed with other expositions: something about Joseph Beuys and ‘Review’ which was centered about the last thirty years of modern art in Austria. I wasn’t able to connect to most of the displayed works of art. Why pictures now consists of around 300 pictures, some of them brilliant, but some of them rather unimaginative. It was good nonetheless.

My personal highlight was a video installation which dealt with the holocaust. The artist contrasted movies of concentration camps and (modern images) of the surrounding landscape with interviews of contemporaries. That those played supporting roles in “Schindlers Liste” (schindler’s list) and elaborated about their roles instead of the horrors of the camps was a genial twist, I came out of the video/displaying room, mentally wrecked after watching the movie for some minutes and started to read the exhibit’s description only afterwards. Is it more disturbing that that I didn’t recognize the real theme of the installation, that I thought people capable of doing almost everything or that I didn’t recognize any difference between a director’s work and the holocaust.

Motivated by this fulfilled vow I’ll take another one: I’ll visit the Picasso exhibition in Vienna’s Albertina before the end of this year. Maybe it will work.

To start the tradition of ending with some lyrics:

Where do we go when we just don’t know
And how do we relight the flame when it’s cold
Why do we dream when our thoughts mean nothing
And when will we learn to control

I need serenity

Godsmack – Serenity

No related posts.