Oh, Vienna (Redux)

Intrigue and in-fighting in Viennese institutions

Vienna’s internationally renowned mid-scale art centres – Secession, Generali Foundation, Bawag Foundation, and Atelier Augarten – are all simultaneously, for different reasons, going through a major crisis. The BAWAG Bank has been suffering from financial scandal for the past year, during which time its foundation, a Kunsthalle-type art centre which has previously hosted exhibitions by Asger Jorn and Rodney Graham, has seemed under threat. The exhibition that I was curating there‚ ‘Romantic Conceptualism’, went as planned, and yet it is to be the last in the current space. The press conference was hijacked by the heads of BAWAG and Generali – the company who has taken over the insurance parts of the crisis-ridden bank, and which has a renowned collection of Conceptual works – who declared that the BAWAG’s foundation is to move in with the Generali’s, use of the space alternating between the two institutions.

The official line is that this will make both institutions more attractive to visitors, but it seems that the main objective is to create, as is planned, two new jobs for managing directors ruling over the same space. This ignores the fact that institutions need actual space to develop an identity. The BAWAG Bank, now owned by the Cerebus hedge fund and forced to streamline its operations, might have good reason to rent out the foundation space in Vienna’s shopping district to a fashion flagship store. But it seems strange that Generali, a company not at all in a crisis of Bawag’s type, is willing to let its foundation be compromised in this radical manner, dictated by real estate management rather than the spatial requirements for showing contemporary art. After having run the foundation’s collection exhibitions program for the last twenty years, its director Sabine Breitwieser unsurprisingly stepped down shortly after the announcement of the news.

But the crisis of these foundations, long-time safe havens for cutting-edge exhibition programmes, seems almost predictable compared to the absurd operetta taking place at Vienna’s artist-run institution Secession. The venerable institution (housing Gustav Klimt’s famous Beethoven frieze) has been in turmoil since last year. Its former president Mathias Hermann was overruled by a new board, whose candidate for the presidency, Barbara Holub, had quietly managed to collect a majority of votes from the many members of the Secession who had apparently been unhappy with Hermann’s ambitious programme of international artists and were hoping for a more ‘local’ programming of the institution

But last year’s quick seems to have backfired: five weeks ago, seven of the fourteen members of the board stepped down; several staff members have left. Furthermore, while it’s hard to say from outside what exactly caused the implosion, some elements of the new programme seem less than convincing. When I was there, the central space was closed for installation (for upcoming shows by Tue Greenfort and Piotr Uklanski). There were still two outdoor projects, meant to confront a ‘praying zone’ – Kunstmoschee (Art Mosque, 2007) by Bosnian artist Azra Aksamja, and a working sausage stall by Baumüller/Hofmann (Wursthaberer, 2007), accompanied by a plant asking attendants to respect the respective cultural and religious zones and beliefs. No comment. In any case, Holub’s reign seems over before it has fully begun, as a recent plenary member meeting proposed an election of a new board and president for late November.

To complete the crisis, Atelier Augarten (now Augarten Contempary) has been left hanging. There is currently a show for a new art prize on display, but, judging by the old pieces shown by shortlisted art group gelitin, with no budget for new productions. And, as Agnes Husslein (head of Belvedere Galleries who run Augarten) plans to close the space once the 20er-Haus is ready to be used again, an independent curator programming the mid-size space as previous curator Thomas Trummer once did previously seems some way off.

Elsewhere, Vienna’s commercial galleries opened September shows with some impressive presentations: a small, concise show of Tchech veteran Jiri Kovanda’s minimalist wall-mounted objects at Krobath-Wimmer, and Chris Johanson’s smart installation of crudely painted objects and architectural ‘obstructions’ at Kargl. The MUMOK Museum of Modern Art has continued its series of good monographic shows with a Sigmar Polke retrospective. But when it comes to the mid-size institutional show, especially those organized around ideas rather than names or genres, Vienna, with the current institutional crisis, has a problem.