Exhibitions 2012

«Overview | 2011

Vienna Today 2012. Photographs of Contemporary Jewish Life by Josef Polleross

November, 7, 2012 to May, 12, 2013

Harry Weber’s photo-book “Heute in Wien” appeared in 1996 alongside an exhibition of the same name at the Jewish Museum Vienna. The impressive black-and-white photos made history. Sixteen years later the Viennese photographer Josef Polleross has followed the traces of Harry Weber to provide a photographic record of life in the Jewish community today, particularly in Vienna’s 2nd district Leopoldstadt.
Polleross’ pictures are a continuation of Harry Weber’s series but also show the changes within the Jewish community and its growth over the last sixteen years. They provide an insight into the diversity of Jewish life in Vienna today. Polleross follows religious Jews with their traditional rituals, but his pictures also show nonreligious Jewish life in various ways: sporting events, activities by youth organizations and senior citizens, commerce and advertising, street festivals, the Jewish Welcome Service, music, and also religious festivals and rituals that give vitality to and create a solidarity between religious and secular Jews.
Curator: Astrid Peterle
Graphic Design: Fuhrer, Wien

Museum Judenplatz
Judenplatz 8
1010 Vienna

Vienna’s Shooting Girls. Jewish Women Photographers from Vienna

October, 23, 2012 to March, 03, 2013

Three quarters of the photo studios in Vienna before 1938 were run by Jewish women. The exhibition “Vienna’s Shooting Girls—Jewish Women Photographers in Vienna” looks at the reasons and sheds light on a great chapter in the history of Jewish women in Vienna. A selection of works by some forty Jewish women photographers offers a representative picture of the history of Austrian photography in the first decades of the twentieth century. Browsing the illustrated magazines and revues of the First Republic, the reader might gain the impression that Vienna at this time was a city of women—and Jewish women in particular. Jewish photographers had a strong influence on life in the city. High-end portrait photography was dominated by women, mostly from liberal Jewish families. Higher education and vocational training have a long tradition in Judaism, and a career was of increasing importance for women. Photography was a very attractive profession for them because it did not require academic qualifications, which were still very difficult to acquire at the time. It offered a realistic chance of success and also of serious artistic recognition. Photo studios could even be run from home, with the equipment being the only significant investment required. The exhibition at the Jewish Museum Vienna follows the steps of the photographers in exile and the arbitrary end of this era for Vienna but also recalls how it was continued in other countries and continents. It features works not only by Madame d’Ora or Trude Fleischmann, but also by less well-known women like Edith Tudor Hart, Hilde Zipper-Strnad, or Claire Beck.
Curators: Iris Meder, Andrea Winklbauer
Design: Conny Marco Cossa
Graphic Design: Fuhrer, Wien

Jewish Museum Vienna
Dorotheergasse 11
1010 Vienna

The Waiting Room of Hope. The Rothschild Hospital in November 1947 – Photos by Henry Ries

October, 19, 2012 to March, 3, 2013

The victory of the Allied Forces over the Nazi regime brought the systematic killing of the jews to an end, but the suffering of the Jewish survivors continued. Vienna’s Rothschild Hospital became a temporary refugee camp and a centre of Jewish life between waiting and hoping for a fresh start. A poor waiting room, which the refugees wanted to leave as fast as possible – to go to the United States or to Palestine/Israel. Only a few remained in Vienna.
From 1945 to 1952, the Rothschild Hospital was a stopover for 250,000 Jewish refugees on their way to a new life. Henry Ries documented for the New York Times the daily routine of the Jewish DPs (Displaced Persons – as the refugees were called) in the transit camp Rothschild Hospital.
The Jewish Museum Vienna presents these documents on the occasion of the 95th birthday of the German-Jewish photographer who died in 2004.
Curator: Danielle Spera

Jewish Museum Vienna
Dorotheergasse 11
1010 Vienna

FOREIGNERS EVERYWHERE. Contemporary Art from the POMERANZ COLLECTION

May, 24, 2012 to October, 7, 2012

The neon sign “FOREIGNERS EVERYWHERE” created by the Claire Fontaine art collective serves not only as a motto for the exhibition of the Pomeranz collection at the Jewish Museum Vienna. “We are always traveling,” says the Odessa native and Viennese collector Eduard Pomeranz: “No matter where we are, we can never feel at home. Judaism is the only foundation that remains—in a life as a foreigner everywhere.”
The Pomeranz collection is about history and memory, crossing frontiers in time and space. It is dedicated to today’s cultural avant-garde: art that defines itself unconstrainedly through the breaks in life—even by breaking taboos—in the tradition of Jewish collectors, who have always promoted the latest trends in art. The Pomeranz collection is being shown at the Jewish Museum Vienna for the first time on a large scale and includes works by Marina Abramović, Yael Bartana to Lawrence Weiner, to name but a few.
Curator: Ami Barak

Jewish Museum Vienna
Dorotheergasse 11
1010 Vienna

“Jewish Geniuses”—Warhol’s Jews

March, 14, 2012 to October, 28, 2012

In 1980 Andy Warhol created a series of portraits of important Jewish personalities of the twentieth century. The idea came from Warhol’s friend and gallerist Ronald Feldman, who inspired Andy Warhol to investigate the Jewish intellectual realm.
From a list of nearly 100 names of famous Jews, ten were chosen. Ten Jews who were not only prominent, but the greatest thinkers, leaders and creative talents of the twentieth century. Even if the portraits were dismissed as superficial, the work made sure that many people reflected on the history and achievements of the people portrayed.
The Jewish Museum Vienna explores the background to this fascinating work. The exhibition presents the inspiration for the series, Ronald Feldman, whose family came from Graz, and it is enriched by a Warhol portrait of an Austrian genius: André Heller.
Curators: Danielle Spera, Astrid Peterle
Design: Bernhard Denkinger
Graphic Design: Fuhrer, Wien

Museum Judenplatz
Judenplatz 8
1010 Vienna

The Vienna Woods in Israel. 110 years Keren Kayemeth Leisrael

March, 4, 2012 to April, 29, 2012

Theordor Herzl was one of the founders of Keren Kaymeth Leisrael (KKL), the Jewish National Fund, in 1901. First president became the Viennese industrialist Johann (Jonah) Kremenezky, therefore the heaqdquarters were domiciled in Vienna for several years. The aims of the KKL were the acquisition of land in then Palestine and reforestation of the largely desert-like terrain, as well as the creation of an infrastructure. The organisation´s symbol became the blue and white collection box, which could be fund in every Jewish household around the globe. Since then, 240 million trees have been planted and 220 artifical water reservoirs created. Thus, the KKL is one of the world´s leading institutions for sustainable ecological development today.