Most of the people know Friedensreich Hundertwasser as a remarkable painter. An artist whose graphic designs seem to dive into a more profound spirituality of the visible and inspire the viewer that admires his work. His colorful spirals dominate his many collections, twisting and turning, like delving in an absconded realm that he could effortless see even if we try pointless to figure it out its meaning.
His architectural designs try to avoid straight lines – “the straight line is God less”, he said – embedding in the rooms unregulated irregularities. He strives for a humanity in harmony with nature, with trees growing in windows and flowers coming out of the floors. These trees are called tree tenants and he had an entire manifesto regarding their use and right to be there, cohabitating with humans in windows and balconies.
Besides, Hundertwasser was a philosopher and mainly an activist for ecology in a time when this was not a cool thing to do. He wrote letters and manifestos, speeches and public performances criticizing the doctrine of permanent growth that is so alive mainly today, the wasteful society and the ridiculous conformism of the society. Probably he would die again to see the fake corporate culture spread across the world.
Not far from Hundertwasserhaus Museum is the place where another modern, this time the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu lived while studying in Vienna where not having yet the baccalaureate exam he was accepted as an extraordinary auditor. The word went that Eminescu seemed to lack money. I don’t know how the neighborhood looked in his time but for sure now it is a very spiffy location.
Modernism in Vienna’s turn of the 20th century arrived on top of ruins and devastation caused by the war. The empire collapsed forced by huge inequality and poverty of the masses and acute tensions among many of its nationalities.
The exhibit at Leopold Museum presents this remarkable advent of the new modernist current in all its aspects, a wealth of artistic and intellectual achievement. At the time of this explosive movement towards modernity Vienna was the city of contradictions that lived side by side: nobility and liberals intellectuals, magnificent building and the squalor of the slums, Zionism and anti-semitism.
The remarkable Secessionists and the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or universal work of art brought art to all areas of life. The Austrian Expressionism started exploring the soul extracting feeling that showed a dissolution of the self, a subject kept tabu for generations by exactly that conformity of the society that I mentioned above. A lot of these artists were part of the new bourgeoisie, many of them Jewish who later on had to flee Vienna, leaving behind them a vacuum of creativity.
From painting, to furniture to architecture to sculpture to jewelry and poster design the exhibition passes through all forms of art that made Vienna what was renown for in its heydays. But what is impressive of this exhibition “Vienna 1900 Birth of Modernism” is the breadth of art of all kinds, from paintings to decorative and home use objects brought from private collection to fill three floor of this remarkable museum.
I passed by at the Kinsky auction house in Vienna where it was the pre-auction viewing of a number of Klimt drawings and a portrait of Margarethe Constance Lieser, the daughter of Adolf Lieser. Actually the auctioneers were not sure if the painting depicted her or one of the two daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette but no matter who the woman was the guy who won the auction paid 30m for it days latter. Anyway I planned to be in Budapest for the day of the auction so I decided to pass on bidding against whatever Arab sheik or a rude Russian disguised as a gentleman. Better a goulash by the Danube…
Roaming the world 
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