For Lóránd Hegyi – director of the Viennese MUMOK from 1990 to 2001 – Vienna has always been a home and to him, within a historical intellectual reference frame, center and core of "Central Europe". Hegyi is not only an expert on the cities vivid art scene, but also supported it for decades.
Formerly being active as the director of the Musée d'Art Moderne St. Etienne, which is home to the second largest collection of Modern Art in France, after the Parisian Centre Pompidou, and today working as the artistic director of museums in Beijing and Singapore, Hegyi still has all the time maintained a close and active connection to Austria's capital.
In this sense his curatorial selection for this year's edition of curated_by « viennaline" is presenting artists, that have been influencing the Viennese art scene and shaping its discourse, and beyond that were making cultural history.
At the forefront of this spectacular exhibition, the artworks of the legendary co-founder of the "Arte Povera" movement Michelangelo PISTOLETTO, who as well worked at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna for many years as a professor, are going to be presented. The exhibition at the same time is a reference, in fact a homage on Pistoletto – an exceptional artist – who has to the present day unabated interest in and a continuing and deep relationship to Vienna.
Within this exhibition and for the first time in Austria, the powerful and intense artworks of Kendell GEERS are shown as well as a new series of works by Bernardí ROIG. Both artists refer in their artworks to the influential oeuvre of the great thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein. Expanding on this year's festival theme "viennaline" the show is going to feature artworks by Ugo GILETTA, Marine JOATTON, Barthélémy TOGUO, Sandra Vásquez DE LA HORRA and Fabien VERSCHAERE.
Alongside the artists and Lóránd Hegyi, we are delighted welcoming you at this extraordinary and unique vernissage!