How Vienna in 1900 Gave Birth to Modern Style and Identity

The Viennese Waltz differs from other waltzes in the speed of the rotation—a dervish-like dance in which the dancers are spun out of their normal existence. That dizzying disorientation helps turn their world upside down. At the turn of the twentieth century, Vienna stood at the heart of a similar kind of waltzing whirlwind in which artistic and cultural forces acted to disorient a whole generation and set the tone for a new, modern reorientation for all Western society. In Vienna 1900: Style and Identity, which runs at the Neue Galerie through June 27, 2011, we rediscover just how influential that city and time were for all that followed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Caught up in our own dizzying times, we can see much of our own disorientation (and perhaps solutions to problems of style and identity) in the amazing cast of characters assembled in Vienna 1900. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Vienna in 1900 Gave Birth to Modern Style and Identity."

[Image: Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951). Gaze, 1910. Oil on cardboard. Belmont Music Publishers, Pacific Palisades. Courtesy Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna. © 2011 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/VBK, Vienna. Photograph © Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna.]

[Many thanks to the Neue Galerie for the image above from, press materials for, and a review copy of the catalog to the exhibition Vienna 1900: Style and Identity, which runs through June 27, 2011.]

Bringing Sexy Back: Swingers Club outside Gustav Klimt’s Beethovenfrieze

The eroticism of Gustav Klimt’s painting is obvious to anyone who has enjoyed his art. A new exhibition at the Secession in Vienna, Austria will make that eroticism obvious to the rest of the world. Outside of the area in which Gustav Klimt’s Beethovenfrieze appears, a sexually explicit “swingers” club hopes to bring sexy back to Klimt’s art in a big way. If nothing else, it may get people talking about Klimt in the same way his contemporaries did. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Bringing Sexy Back."

[Image: Installation view of Club Element 6 at the Secession outside Gustav Klimt’s Beethovenfrieze.]



[Many thanks to the Secession for providing me with the image above and press materials for Club Element 6 and the Beethovenfrieze.]

Funny Valentine

OK, gents, The Art Love Doctor is IN! You’re pressed for time and short on ideas for buying that perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your lady. Somewhere in the recesses of your mind, a slide from that art appreciation class you took as an elective in college rises before you—Gustav Klimt’s 1907-1908 painting The Kiss. Eureka! She loves art! You hustle down to the poster store and find a copy of The Kiss suitable for framing. Mission accomplished? WRONG! Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Funny Valentine."

Who's Art Is It Anyway?

The fight over who owns art might have just gone nuclear, and Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 painting The Night Cafe (shown above) is at the center of it. The descendents of the Russian industrialist who bought the painting in 1908, only to see Soviet Russia “nationalize” the painting and sell it in the 1930s, are demanding that Yale University, which received the painting as a bequest in the 1960s, give it back. Perhaps $20 billion in art treasures hangs in the balance. Who is right? What does this mean for the public, who can only stand on the sidelines as masterpieces have their day in court? Please click over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Who's Art Is It Anyway?"