Salzburg Museum of Modern Art with Female Positions – Culture –
The Rupertinum, the first location of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, is celebrating its 40th anniversary today. The anniversary is also an occasion to encourage the people of Salzburg to tell their stories connected with the museum. They will be part of a show that will be shown from June 24th – and which, as one of twelve exhibitions planned for this year, will focus on female artistic positions, informed museum director Harald Krejci on Thursday.
The new head of the house has been in office since January 1st. Under he made it clear at today’s program presentation for 2023 that participation, digitization and cooperation are important to him. The program, which was almost completely fixed by Krejci’s predecessor Thorsten Sadowsky, started with Gunda Gruber from Salzburg, who received the State Grand Prize for Fine Arts in 2022. “The Geometry of Non-Orders” is the title of her first personals. The encounter between the Austrian photographer Inge Morath (who would be celebrating her 100th birthday today) and the draftsman Saul Steinberg is documented in a small show entitled “Mask and Face”.
“Stepping Out!” provides an insight into the positions of contemporary Chinese artists. in cooperation with the Kunstmuseum Lillehammer and Kunstforeningen GL Strand. A total of 26 artists, all of whom live and work in China, will show their works. With Marinella Senatore, the Museum der Moderne is also presenting an Italian contemporary artist who works with the most diverse media – light sculptures, photographs, films, drawings, and various textiles – and who relies heavily on participation in her work. In Salzburg, a parade with dance, music, singing and performance is to be created with the population under the title “The School of Narrative Dance”.
A show with pictures by the German theater photographer Ruth Walz, who works regularly for the Salzburg Festival, is planned for the summer. A collaboration with Tate Modern resulted in a show of works by Slovakian artist Maria Bartuszova, who died in 1996. “It’s a rediscovered artist with a very extensive body of work,” announced Krejci. It will be the first exhibition that Krejci brings to the museum program. “Arch of Hysteria – Between Madness and Ecstasy” is made up of works by different artists with the “arc de cercle” – the backward bend – as a motif in art history. “The backbend represents dance and acrobatics as well as ecstasy and hysteria,” said the director. An exhibition on media art and a show of photographic works by Anna Jermolaewa, originally from Russia, round off the programme.
Krejci said that he wanted to continue the path initiated by his predecessor, to present stronger positions outside of the well-known art-historical canon. He is not concerned with “a change of perspective, but with a variety of perspectives”. A museum is a dynamic, organic structure that is constantly evolving. For him, digitization – the first part of the collection is to be made accessible on the website in autumn – is just as much an opportunity to reach new audiences as is the strengthening of participatory and digital offers in educational work. Last year, the Museum der Moderne had around 82,400 visitors – compared to around 100,000 people in the years before the pandemic.