EVENT LANGUAGE: GERMAN

An extensive retrospective at the Leopold Museum is dedicated to the outstanding Austrian artist Rudolf Wacker (1893-1939).

A tour of the exhibition with curator Laura Feurle traces his life and artistic work, which was shaped by the political events of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and National Socialism in Germany and Austria.

A comparative look at works from different creative periods makes it clear how artistic technique and the pace of work also changed with stylistic development. At the same time, the temporality of the pictorial worlds depicted changes: The rhythm of the expressionist play of line and color and the moving life of things is completely stopped in the new-objective creative phase. The simply chosen motifs and compositions are increasingly reduced, condensed and intensified.

Although the accelerated realities of modern life do not find their way into Wacker’s art, these mature works are by no means out of date: with the rise of National Socialism, the proverbial “ravages of time” begin to gnaw at the world of things in Wacker’s still lifes.

These works open up associative spaces for a critical view of the zeitgeist of the 1920s and 1930s, which Wacker perceived as threatening.

Registration required. FULLY BOOKED.

Meeting point: Entrance area