Sabine Folie, photo: VOGUS
Background: Installation by Klaus Scherübel, Cranach‘s Holy Productivity VOL. 28, 2024

Dear Friends of the Academy Art Collections!

As announced in September, I am pleased to now inform you about the plans for the coming year in the Paintings Gallery.
 
Up to 16 February you can still see Considering the Collection & Cranach’s Holy Productivity An Insert by Klaus Scherübel. In his large installation in the gallery Scherübel explores Lukas Cranach the Elder’s painting The Holy Kinship (1510–1512).
 
From March the exhibition Wild Apollo’s Arrows. Klopstock Cult & Ossian Fever, expertly curated by illustrator and image historian Alexander Roob, looks at antagonisms between the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment at the threshold between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. “Decades before the French Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment saw a sudden outbreak of irrational sentiment, expressed in exuberant emotions and a fragmented, heroic, and introspective view of art,” writes Robb.
 
After our exhibition History Tales, it is no coincidence that we are again looking at a key period in history characterised by reactions to the Enlightenment’s “terror of reason” – a shift to religious fanaticism, superstition, national mythologies and mysticisms, and projections of current and invented narratives of origin and foundation. In the light of our own times, this reflection on the roots and development of an exaltation of the emotions and of extremes and fake news, the defamation of otherness, withdrawals into an “own” identity and the cultivation of atavistic aspirations seems very appropriate and instructive.
 
Wild Apollo’s Arrows is an exhibition by the Art Collections held in three galleries in the Paintings Gallery and also in the Exhibit Gallery. This collaboration also includes works by students by way of contemporary commentary on the themes of the exhibition.
 
At the same time we continue to present our own collection with Highlights of the Paintings Gallery, and in summer next year this will be complemented by a focus on the Romanesque Schools to mark the presentation of Martina Fleischer’s 672-page catalogue of our Italian, French and Spanish painting collections. Take the opportunity to purchase the recently published publication with well-founded research results at a special price until 6 January 2025.
 
In autumn, we are continuing our series of Inserts with Belgian artist Ana Torfs. In The Day You Were Thinking About the Sibyl While You Were Picking Autumn Leaves the artist premières 28 new woven tapestries, the themes of which she began to explore during the Corona period. They refer to the daily reading of newspapers, combining this with personal reflections, and diary-entry-style aphorisms on the state of the world. This work traces loose connections to the women’s voices of the Sibylline prophetesses, who wrote their prophecies on leaves.
 
With our recent new lighting design protecting works from direct light, and by switching to LED lighting, we have been able to set new milestones in the presentation and preservation of exhibits and in energy efficiency. In August and September next year the Gallery windows are due for renovation and the Gallery will be partially closed. We will provide more information in due course.
 
Finally, I would like to note again that a large part of our art collection is now viewable online. Making our cultural heritage accessible internationally in this way is a further milestone in the history of our institution.
 
Thank you for your continuing interest in the Academy Art Collections. You are most welcome to visit our exhibitions and to take advantage of events and workshops that offer in-depth exploration of the themes of the exhibitions. We look forward to your visit!

With sincere and best wishes for peaceful holidays and strength for coming challenges,

Sabine Folie 
Director
and the team of the Art Collections
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna