Art - George Hunka

“That’s why the rats are back”

Deborah Sengl, The Last Days of Mankind. Stuffed rats and requisites on wooden pedestals, height dimension of the scene: variable, © Deborah Sengl, 2014. Photo: Mischa Nawrata, Wien.

At the Museum Dorotheergasse of the Jüdischen Museum Wien, the exhibition of Deborah Sengl’s taxidermic interpretation of Karl Kraus’s The Last Days of Mankind will continue through September 29, and if you’re in Vienna, you certainly should stop in and see it. (And with any luck the Austrian Cultural Forum here in New York will sit up and take notice.) I’ve written before about Sengl’s revealing perspective on Kraus’s great satiric masterpiece, and the museum itself offers its rationale for exhibiting the work right now:

The year 2024 is an election year. Throughout Europe, parties dreaming of “illiberal democracies” are gaining strength and attempting to persuade us that the term is not a contradiction. Society is polarized, with the social media echo chambers serving their own clientele and stirring up animosity to others. Pandemic and war have polarized public opinion even further, and the gap between rich and poor grows daily. Antisemitism and racism are omnipresent. Many people see this as a premonition of the last days of democracy, and Kraus, who celebrates his 150th anniversary this year, is more relevant than ever. That’s why the rats are back.

One of them will be on the debate stage in Philadelphia tonight. More information about the exhibition can be found here.

Klimt’s landscapes at the Neue Galerie

Gustav Klimt, Park at Kammer Castle, 1909, oil on canvas. Neue Galerie New York. This work is part of the collection of Estée Lauder and was made available through the generosity of Estée Lauder.

Opening next week and running through May 6 at New York’s Neue Galerie, Klimt Landscapes examines his nature paintings, a part of his work that has too often taken a back seat to his more well-known paintings and drawings of the human figure. “For the last twenty years of his career,” the Neue Galerie says, “Klimt devoted considerable energy to painting landscapes during his summer vacations on the Attersee in the Salzkammergut region of Austria, known for its tranquil lakes. Created purely for his own pleasure, these bucolic scenes became among his most sought-after pictures and were highly coveted by collectors. Most were made in a square format — a reflection of his fascination with photography.” The exhibition will be situated within a selection of the Neue Galerie’s significant Klimt holdings.

Like the landscapes of Egon Schiele, Klimt’s landscapes are revealing of a rarely seen side of a major Fin de siècle artist — as sensual as his human figures, but within a more holistic view of the physical world. More information can be found at the Neue Galerie web site here.

The triumph of wisdom

Reading through Andrew Wheatcroft’s history The Habsburgs recently (one of my souvenirs from Vienna), I came across mention of Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611), a court artist for Rudolf II in Prague; before that he had been a court painter for Pope Pius V and Rudolf’s predecessor as Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian II. Although there was a major American exhibition of this work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ten years ago, by far the largest collection of his work now resides at Vienna’s Kunsthistorischesmuseum.

That’s where you can find Spranger’s The Triumph of Wisdom, above. To quote from the KHM’s description of the work (lightly edited from Google Translate):

Minerva, the goddess of the arts and science, is at the center of the presentation. The uncovered breasts can be characterized as “Sapientia lactans,” as the nutrient of wisdom. She has conquered the foolish “ignorance.” But their keeping of suffering also reminds us of the risen Christ. It triumphs over dark forces and becomes the embodiment of the highest human ideals. The refined colour and elegant pose are hallmarks of Rudolfinian court art.

Spranger, an examplar of the Northern Mannerist school, was renowned for his remarkable ability to marry an erotic sensuousness to both pagan and Christian themes. “This style stressed sensuality, which was expressed in smoothly modeled, elongated figures arranged in elegant poses, often including a nude woman seen from behind,” says the ol’ Wikipedia. It’s terrific — I never knew wisdom could look so great. And I wonder if Facebook will permit it. (UPDATE: It won’t.)