Sabine Folie, photo: Elodie Grethen


Dear reader, dear visitor to the Art Collections of the Vienna Academy!

Our fall programming is designed to highlight the academy’s establishment and early years as well as the mission that has defined it as an educational institution from the very beginning. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna enjoys outstanding international renown in no small part thanks to its early founding – modelled on its French sister institution, it was set up in 1726 – and the exceptional quality and diversity of its collections: the University Library, the Graphic Collection, the Paintings Gallery, and the Plaster Cast Collection. One key treasure is the outstanding collection of paintings assembled by Count Anton Franz de Paula Lamberg-Sprinzenstein, who served as ambassador in Turin and Naples and later became a member and president of the academy, to which he bequeathed his holdings in 1822. His stipulation that the collection be shown in public exhibitions and made accessible as an educational resource speaks to a distinctly Enlightenment-era aspiration. Subsequent gifts have enlarged the collection by adding major works by artists from Botticelli and Titian to Rubens, further cementing the Academy’s international stature.

In recent years, the academy’s Art Collections have amplified their public visibility as a unique part of a vibrant museum scene. The appeal of the collections rests on the exceptional breadth and quality of their holdings; exhibitions embed them in new contexts by drawing pointed connections to the present, spotlighting diverse themes, and integrating contemporary artists’ perspectives. Central to this approach is the enduring relevance of historical collections – both for students and for a wider public audience.

Rather than mounting purely monographic presentations or showcasing traditional schools of art history, the Art Collections open up perspectives on the interrelationships between the past, present, and future. The exhibitions reveal how social conditions, literature, technological developments, politics, class issues, and economic developments influence the production of art – and which insights such observations can yield for the present.

In the fall exhibition The Great Michelangelo Is Dead! Avant-Garde and Academicism, which opens on October 1, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna now pursues this approach in another facet, focusing on the creative tension between the avant-garde and academicism. The presentation traces a journey through the history of academies – from Vasari and Michelangelo through Le Brun’s French academy and Sandrart’s German academy all the way to the present – and explores the responses of various historical avant-gardes. Re-enactments and works by contemporary artists consider the ongoing interplay between canon and innovation from distinctive angles.

Laid out as an eclectic essay across the ages, the exhibition illustrates how novel ideas and the avant-garde have often evolved in deliberate opposition to the academy yet also benefited from it – and vice versa. A fundamental mechanism of cultural development comes into view: what initially takes the stage as avant-garde can later become canonical itself and be challenged in turn by new artistic movements.

The rich holdings of the academy’s art collections are complemented by eminent works on loan, including by Vasari, Le Brun, Poussin, and Sandrart as well as Picabia, Lichtenstein, and Immendorff. Contemporary artists have created about ten new works specially for the exhibition, which act as contemporary interventions within Helmut Draxler’s multifaceted curatorial conception.

We wish you an enlightening and inspiring fall and hope our programme of exhibitions and events will capture your interest.

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