FOREIGNERS EVERYWHERE
Contemporary Art from the POMERANZ COLLECTION
curated by Ami Barak
What made EDUARD and JANA POMERANZ (EPSTIFTUNG) become collectors? What spirit of adventure led them to compile a collection of international contemporary art in such a short time? The exhibition FREMDE ÜBERALL/FOREIGNERS EVERYWHERE attempts to provide answers to this question with works of exceptional quality. The title is taken from a work by the Claire Fontaine artists’ collective and reminds us that art is above all a statement about differentness, a reflection of otherness and of society’s appreciation of openness towards the world. In this early twenty-first century and in a city that has always had a place for art, the Jewish Museum Vienna is showing a special exhibition in its newly renovated rooms, in which the history of the present is juxtaposed with a past that has disappeared in a dark fog. For that reason alone, this major Jewish collector is of prime importance for Vienna’s art scene.
With works by:
Adel Abdessemed, Marina Abramović & Ulay, Saâdane Afif, Francis Alÿs, John M. Armleder, Miroslaw Balka, Yael Bartana, Walead Besthy, Joseph Beuys, Mircea Cantor, Paul Chan, Claire Fontaine, Keren Cytter, Jimmie Durham, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Valie Export, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Stano Filko, Lizzie Fitch & Ryan Trecartin, Ceal Floyer, Cyprien Gaillard, Ryan Gander, Douglas Gordon, Ignacio Gonzalez-Lang, Ion Grigorescu, Shilpa Gupta, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, Martin Kippenberger, Imi Knoebel, Joachim Koester, Július Koller, Sigalit Landau, Elad Lassry, Leigh Ledare, Madein, David Maljkovic, Victor Man, Boris Mikhailov, Jonathan Monk, Matt Mullican, Ciprian Muresan, Deimantas Narkevicius, Bruce Nauman, Roman Ondak, Adrian Paci, Walid Raad, Robin Rhode, Michael Riedel, Ugo Rondinone, Joe Scanlan, Markus Schinwald, Taryn Simon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Danh Vo, Lawrence Weiner, Franz West, Christopher Williams
May 24 to October 7, 2012
Shooting Girls - Jewish female photographers from Vienna
The exhibition “Jewish Women Photographers” presents the photo studios of Jewish women. An unusually large number of Jewish women, usually from wealthy families, chose this profession in Vienna. The Jewish Museum looks at the reasons for this and by restoring it to the collective memory makes a bit of Viennese Jewish history accessible once again. The exhibition follows the photographers into the exile that brought an arbitrary end to this story for Vienna but enabled them to continue their work in other countries and continents. A selection of works by thirty Jewish women photographers provides a representative idea of the history of Austrian photography in the first decades of the twentieth century. It features works not only by Madame d’Ora or Trude Fleischmann, but also by forgotten women like Edith Tudor Hart, Hilde Zipper-Strnad, or Claire Beck. It also shows how important the contribution of Jewish women was to this art form. The exhibition and catalogue will document many new discoveries. It is not only the photographers and their works that are of interest, however. The people they photographed represents a cross-section of the cultural life of the First Republic. The photographs and biographies of the photographers give a deep insight into the life of women in the first half of the twentieth century and the rapid changes it underwent, especially and particularly in Jewish circles, in the course of just a few decades. A further exhibition will be devoted to Viennese Jewish women photographers from 1945 to the present and will document in a similar way the changes in the meaning of Jewishness for their choice of profession and artistic work.
Curators: Iris Meder, Andrea Winklbauer
October 17, 2012 to March 2013
EXHIBITIONS AT MUSEUM JUDENPLATZ
Vienna Today 2012. Photographs of Contemporary Jewish Life by Josef Polleross
Harry Weber’s photo album “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. Fifteen 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 Leopoldstadt. Polleross’s 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
September 12, 2012 to January, 2013
