BELVEDERE: Talking Heads. Contemporary dialogues with F. X. Messerschmidt

Exhibition from 8. March to 18. August 2019 in the orangery of the Lower Belvedere

Vienna (OTS) – today, the presentation fascinated a psychological extreme situations, in the famous „character heads“ of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. On the basis of these masterpieces of the Baroque, the exhibition focuses on the head as a motif in art. How about „head work“ in Tony Oursler, Douglas Gordon and Arnulf Rainer, Maria Lassnig, or Bruce Nauman? And what, in a time of „Face“book, Selfies and the obsession with beauty in addition to the pure surface of the face stock

Messerschmidt’s Baroque sculptures are among the Highlights of the Belvedere collection.

General Director Stella Rollig: The strong expression of each of these heads has fascinated for centuries. The audience loves the bizarre representations while artists and artists from their psychological implications. What emerges here is of astonishing relevance and diversity.

In a varied Exhibition, the busts are set rich in multimedia dialogue with ten positions of contemporary art. The artistic media ranging from painting and sculpture to Film and Video or photography. The title of the Talking Heads refers to the close connection of the head/brain, language, and image. The Show raises questions about categories, such as Psyche, perception and (Self-)Bespiegelung. It goes beyond the appearance of distortions, transformations, and movements of heads on the pure surface of the face.

Curator of the exhibition, Axel Köhne: In the exhibition of the head as a stand-alone aesthetic motif and Material in the center. The Artists use here are often a mind of their own and work in a performative way with him. It’s A Mind Thing!

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, a total of approximately 69 „Kopf-Stückhe“, later „character heads“ called, originated in the years 1770/71 to 1783, at the time of the burgeoning enlightenment. The Belvedere collection includes 16 of the famous sculptures, twelve of which are on view in the exhibition. You head work „of the 20“. and 21. Century, in which Artists engage directly or indirectly in a dialogue with Messerschmidt. Arnulf Rainer and, currently, Mara Mattuschka reference or revise the Messerschmidt heads specifically. In addition, other original additions to the head are shown as a motive. Such as those of Lutz Mommartz, in his cinematic portrait of the artist Joseph Beuys Self – perception and perception questions. A further dichotomy, which is shown in the case of Anna Artaker, or Arnulf Rainer in the Form of death masks, is the simultaneous presence and absence of people. On the influence of current violent events Miriam Cahn reflected in their drastic head images. The spoken and written word as a human and theatrical form of expression shows Tony Oursler with his sometimes humorous Head projections. Douglas Gordon and Bruce Nauman work in their equally conceptual as radical video works, with the own head.

In view of the great importance of the face in our society, the exhibition impression indicates fully the fact, that the human being only by the performance of the human brain to a thinking, speaking, and discerning individual. Aware full a separation of the motifs of the face and head and presents contemporary versions of the talking heads.

In addition to the chosen twelve „character heads“ of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt approximately fifty works by Anna Artaker, Miriam Cahn, Douglas Gordon, Kurt Kren, Maria Lassnig, Mara Mattuschka, Lutz Mommartz, Bruce Nauman, Tony Oursler, Arnulf Rainer.

For more information and press photos you can find [HERE] (https://bit.ly/2UmBABL).

Österreichische Galerie Belvedere
Mag. Alexandra Guth
Press Officer Of Belvedere
Tel.: +43 1 79 557-177
presse@belvedere.at
www.belvedere.at