They run orchesters and museums, as well as opera houses and exhibition centers, and they are the bearers of a wind for the cultural world of Vienna: in the direction of numerous cultural institutions in Vienna there are women and their number is rapidly growing. What do you have in common? They have excellent training, are perfectly integrated internationally and have ambitious projects. This is how Wien Tourismus, the tourism promotion body of the city of Vienna, presents them to us.

Modern Albertina: Angela Stief

An eccentric clothing, a keen interest in pop culture and the reputation of being a particularly critical spirit with a strongly feminist approach: the most dazzling new entry to the management of a Viennese cultural center is called Angela Stief. Since 1st September she has been director and principal curator of Albertina Modern. The branch office of the Celeberrima Albertina, inaugurated in 2020, is dedicated to modern, postmodern and contemporary artistic production.

Stief, an art historian born in 1974 in Augsburg, caused a sensation in the world of culture in Vienna when, in her role as curator of the Kunsthalle Wien, she put female pop art, queer fashion and performance art at the center of attention . For Albertina Modern Angela Stief already worked as curator of the inaugural exhibition “The Beginning”. The exhibition “The 80s” is currently taking place at the Albertina Modern center, on the stylistic pluralism of the Eighties, which therefore addresses the issue of the birth of postmodernism. In her new role as director of Albertina Modern Stief she is also a section of Albertina’s “Contemporary Art”.

Museum of Applied Arts: Lilli Hollein

The Mak Museum of Applied Arts, one of the major Viennese design institutions at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has had a new general director since September 1st: Lilli Hollein. Born in Vienna in 1972, she is a well-known figure in the cultural world. Curator and cultural manager, she is considered a true design experience and in 2007 she was one of the co-founders of Vienna Design Week, the largest annual Viennese design event. From 2013 to 2021 Hollein managed the Design Week alone, managing to establish Vienna internationally as an important center of contemporary design.

The inclination towards a careful design and the tendency to reflect on an unusual formal language has it, so to speak, in the blood. Lilli Hollein is in fact the daughter of Hans Hollein (1934-2014), Viennese architect and winner of the Pritzker Prize. His brother Max Hollein is director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Lilli Hollein’s commitment to the Mak also represents in a certain sense a return to the roots: Hollein studies industrial design at the University of Applied Arts, whose headquarters are located in the same building complex as the Mak.

Volksoper: Lotte de Beer

Lotte de Beer in the 2022/23 season will bring new air to the Vienna Volksoper. The Dutch opera director, born in 1981, will be the first woman to direct this musical institution. De Beer is no stranger to the world of musical theater: she graduated in directing from the Amsterdam University of the Arts, after studying piano, singing and acting in Maastricht. She celebrated her first great successes starting from 2010 with the Operafront company, of which she is co-founder. Later it conquered the European musical theaters. Lotte de Beer has created productions in large theaters, such as the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Austrian festival in Bregenz and in numerous other centers in Basel, Malmö and Essen, hence its excellent reputation. She is known for her ultra-modern staging and non-dogmatic approaches, and she also knows Vienna well, where in the past she worked as a director at the Theater an der Wien and the Kammeroper.

Jewish Museum of Vienna: Barbara Staudinger

The Jewish Museum of Vienna (Jmw) will also have a new director starting in July: Barbara Staudinger, born in 1973, succeeds the long-time director Danielle Spera. Until recently, Staudinger was director of the Jewish Museum in Augusta, in Swabia. She began her career as a scientific collaborator of the Austrian Institute of Jewish History. He was also a member of the team that oversaw the rearrangement of the exhibition on Austria at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Over the last few years he has participated in numerous research projects and published several scientific essays on Jewish history and culture. Staudinger studied History, Theatrical Sciences and Judaism at the University of Vienna. The theme of his thesis was “Jews in the Reichshofrat”.

Theater Museum: Marie-Theres Arnbom

The Theater Museum, which is part of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Association, has also been in the hands of a woman since January 1st. The new scientific director is called Marie-Theres Arnbom, she is Viennese by birth (born in 1968) and has many years of experience as a free lance curator. Arnbom is the author of numerous scientific publications, has founded, conceived and organized several festivals and has worked in the field of musical dramaturgy. He had already curated two reviews at the Theater Museum. Arnbom’s latest publication concerns the villas of the upper middle class. She is also the author of the books “Swing tanzen verboten! Unterhaltungsmusik nach 1933 zwischen Widerstand, Propaganda und Vertreibung ”(“ Swinging prohibited! Musical entertainment after 1933 between Resistance, propaganda and expulsion ”) and“ Damals war Heimat. Die Welt des jüdischen Großbürgertums ”(“ At that time there was the homeland. The world of the Jewish upper middle class ”). Marie-Theres Arnbom is also the director of the Kindermusikfestival St. Gilgen, a music festival for children, and of Hölle am See, a theater and cabaret festival. As part of her activity as scientific director, her most important goal is to attract new target audiences to the Theater Museum.

Rso & MdW: Marin Alsop

Marin Alsop took on the role of director of the Orf Radiosymphonia-Orchester (Rso) in 2019. Alsop, who was born in New York in 1956, is the first woman to hold a professorship in the “Conducting” section at the world-famous Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. It has long been considered a pioneer in a male-dominated arena. This is amply demonstrated by his career, which he started by winning the 1989 Leopold Stokowski Memorial Competition in New York. One of his mentors and Leonard Bernstein masters. New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, there are few great orchesters that he has not had the opportunity to conduct. But also orchestras de Paris, Münchener Philharmoniker and numerous others have bet on Alsop. In addition, Alsop with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra ensemble was the first woman ever to conduct a large American orchestra.

Viennale Wiener Filmfestival: Eva Sangiorgi

Many important Viennese cultural institutions and many important women at their helm. But Wien Tourismus has forgotten two: Eva Sangiorgi (pictured), Italian, since January 2018 at the helm of the Viennale, the Vienna film festival, and Sabine Haag, who remained at the head of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, after Eike Schmidt “made the great refusal ”, preferring to stay at the Uffizi. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of filling the gap, at least as far as the first one is concerned.

Eva Sangiorgi was born in Faenza, in the province of Ravenna, 43 years ago, but she grew up in Castel Bolognese. She graduated in Communication Sciences from the University of Bologna, and then obtained a diploma in Art History from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Since 2003 she has been curator and organizer of international festivals in Mexico and Europe and in 2010 she founded her main creation: the Festival Internacional de Cine of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, which she directed until 2018, when she was invited to take the time of the Viennale.

At the Viennese festival she took over from Franz Schwartz, who had been its interim director, after the sudden death in Rome, from a heart attack, of his predecessor Hans Hurch, director of the Viennale for over twenty years. The Sangiorgi conduction was a great success, so much so that the festival managers, to ensure their collaboration, extended the contract until 2026.

[Contributo di Wien Tourismus]

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