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A Short Introduction to the Vienna Art Week
by Reanne Leunig
Vienna is known worldwide for its cultural splendor. The city is home to numerous museums, art galleries and other fine arts institutions that have hosted many spectacular and influential exhibitions. But despite Vienna’s many extremely high-quality achievements, the city’s potential to become a leading venue on the global art scene – with respect to both historical works and contemporary art – has not yet been realized. In order to transform Vienna into one of the top global destinations in the fine arts, a group of twenty-five private and public players – including Vienna’s leading museums, exhibition houses and art academies, the international art fair Viennafair and the Association of Art Galleries – decided to join forces in contemporary and visual art activities. This lead to the founding of Art Cluster Vienna in 2004.
The first Art Cluster Vienna project soon became a reality. In April 2005, the first Vienna Art Week took place, based on an idea by Martin Böhm and Martin Ohneberg of Dorotheum Auctioneers. The Artistic Director is Art&Idea’s Robert Punkenhofer. The Vienna Art Week provides a platform for art experts from around the world to form and exchange new ideas and expertise while at the same time presenting Vienna’s extensive art offerings. Generously funded by twenty-nine different private sponsors, some five hundred international museum directors, curators, collectors, gallery owners, art critics and artists – in particular from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the UK and the USA – were invited to take part in the extensive program. Owing to the overwhelming success of this very first Art Week, seen through the very positive feedback from both the international press and the art public, the Vienna Art Week in the meantime has established itself as a fixed date in the international art event calendar.
With its slogan ‘Time for Quality’, the Vienna Art Week presents itself as the art week which has all the time in the world. It clearly distances itself from hectic cities around the globe, playing on Vienna’s laidback charm. Time is also the key theme of the Vienna Art Week program: it is structured around the three program tracks “Big Time – Events that make the exceptional moment a memorable experience”, “Private Time – Events offering exclusive time with directors and experts from Vienna’s Art Scene” and “Ahead of Time – Sharing insider information”.
Ahead of Time is dedicated to high-calibre panel and round-table discussions, investigating the most recent developments in contemporary art from diverse perspectives. Since 2005, the Vienna Art Week has been host to twenty-eight public discussions on themes as diverse as the position of Vienna as an art location in a global context, the role of China as an emerging art power and the new challenges that curatorial practice is confronted with today. Over a hundred panellists took part in these discussions, including Roger M. Buergel of Documenta 12 and Robert Storr of the Venice Biennale 2007.
Private Time events give visitors an opportunity to meet important protagonists of the Viennese art scene, offering ideal settings for discussion in a relaxed atmosphere. During studio visits, highly recognized Vienna based curators guide the visitors to the studios of some of the most challenging Austria-based artists of the international contemporary scene. Director’s cut features exclusive museum tours guided by the directors of the institutions. And during the city walks, insiders provide an exciting view of the architectural highlights of Vienna such as the Otto Wagner pavilions, the T-Center, the Gasometers and buildings along the Donaukanal.
And last but not least, Big Time celebrates art through a number of festive occasions, including openings, receptions, festive breakfasts and parties. One of the other highlights is the award ceremony of the viennaartbookaward, which took place for the first time in 2006. The viennaartbookaward, of 25,000 euro, is a prize in recognition of the best art publication on the subject of Old Masters (pre-1848), bestowed by various Viennese art institutions. Another prize that is awarded during the Vienna Art Week is the Birgit Jürgenssen Prize. It is awarded to a student of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna for his/her achievements in the media sphere, taking works of photography, video and (digital) media art into special consideration.
In addition, the program also offers artistic interventions showcasing cutting-edge artworks commissioned especially for the Vienna Art Week by internationally recognized artists. In 2006, Austrian artist Norbert Brunner used the lobby of the Hotel Meridien as a stage for his installation of transparent acrylic glass pipes. Outside the hotel his TIMEPILLS - inflatable objects that served as visual communication platforms - were on display. That same year, New York based artist Nadine Robinson intervened with a performance along the famous central Ringstraße using sheep, and the Chilean artist Eugenia Vargas Pereira travelled to Vienna with her live radio station Talking Head Transmitters. In 2007, London-based artist Ian Monroe placed a number of “traces” in the form of mirrored cubicles upon the city of Vienna. The coordinates of each cubicle were recorded, photographed and uploaded to Google Earth, adding the images via the panoramic geo-location service. Thus, the project has in some sense become “visible from space” via Google Earth.
Vienna Art Week
Concept: Martin Böhm, Martin Ohneberg, Robert Punkenhofer
Artistic Director: Robert Punkenhofer
Project management: Hasenlechner Art Consult
Johann Kräftner, Director, Liechtenstein Museum
Wolfgang Waldner, Director, MuseumsQuartier Wien
Karlheinz Essl, Director, The Essl Collection
Johannes Faber, Chairman, Association of Austrian Galleries of Modern Art
Jillian de Beer, Director, De Beer Marketing & Communications
Martin Bailey, Correspondent, The Art Newspaper
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