Anniversary celebrations: the Museum of Modern Art and the Summer Academy

The academy focuses this year on performance, set design, filmmaking and installations. At the museum, exhibitions by Mária Bartuszová and Marinella Senatoree

Salzburg, the Austrian city known for being the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and for its prestigious music festival, is closely associated with modern and contemporary art. Highlights of this summer are a number of events that are significant specifically in terms of art. In fact, two major anniversaries are being celebrated: the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art and the 70th anniversary of the Summer Academy of Fine Arts.

IN 2000, THADDAEUS ROPAC ENRICHED THE MUSEUM WITH WORKS BY BASELITZ, FLEURY, KIEFER AMONG OTHERS

The latter had as its founder, in 1953, Oskar Kokoschka, who, with the School of Seeing which opened in the Hohensalzburg fortress, created the first art academy in Europe, without drawing any lines between artistic craftsmanship and intellectual and humanistic training. The summer academy, which has two venues, the historic fortress and the Untersberg stone quarry in Fürstenbrunn, focuses this year on various painting techniques, including performance, set design, filmmaking and installations. The works created can be seen during the Open Studios days. The Museum of Modern Art also has two venues: the Rupertinum, in the heart of the Old Town, whose baroque rooms have housed the Rupertinum modern art and graphic collection since 1983, and the newer museum on the Mönchsberg Hill. The former, unmistakable for the ceramic tiles by the visionary Hundertwasser, in 2016 also housed in its renovated rooms the Generali Foundation’s Study Center, among the country’s largest private collections.

FOUNDED IN 1953 BY OSKAR KOKOSCHKA, THE ACADEMY INCLUDES ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP AND HUMANISTIC TRAINING

In 2004, the panoramic marble and glass building was opened, increasing the exhibition space and providing suitable rooms for large-scale works. If the beginning of the museum’s activity was due to a donation in the late 1970s by art dealer Friedrich Welz, including a large number of graphic works by artists such as Boeckl, Kirckner, Klee, Manzù, and Watruba, in the early 2000s it was gallery owner Thaddaeus Ropac who enriched it with works by Baselitz, Fleury, Kiefer, and Wurm among others. While the graphic collection includes works by Klimt, Schiele, Kubin, Cézanne, Gauguin, Munch, and the complete works of Kokoschka, the photographic collection is also very significant. Among the summer 2023 exhibitions of great interest are those at the Mönchsberg: in one, works in bronze and aluminum by Maria Baruzszovà are exhibited for the first time in Austria (7/21- 7/1/24), in the other, entitled “We rise by lifting others,” the multidisciplinary works of Marinella Senatore (until 8/10/23). It is no coincidence that the Salzburg museum’s activities have long tended to focus on women’s art.