MUMOK, Beethoven Freize and Yellow Fog

At the end of March I went to Vienna - its a brilliant city, very pretty to wander around and there's lots of good food, art and sunshine!

The mumok is a big contemporary art gallery in the Museum Quarter. I have never been in a building where I've noticed that it feels good before. I don't mean in terms of the atmosphere or the art, but the actual building felt good under your hands and feet. It is made out of some sort of blackish stone which is soft and warm to the touch (even inside, or in the shady bits). And walking up the stairs feels good, the steps are bumpy, they feel soft and yielding somehow and are easy to grip, so you don't feel you'll slip (polished cement floors are slippy - in alot of galleries I feel like I need to hold on..). It was also really well laid out and designed. Often when you're in a really cool building there are always details that seem stuck on at the last minute e.g signage and fire safety features. The mumok building doesn't have that - the fire exit signs are set into (and so flush with) the wall - everything feels considered.

The show was good too. Musee D'Art Moderne A Vendre Pour Cause de Faillite (Museum for sale due to bankruptcy). Below are a couple of the best works. I hadn't heard of Marcel Broodthaers before I saw this show -  his work below really stood out. As well as being aesthetically beautiful and somehow satisfying it felt dynamic, as if it was paused at the moment just before something was about to happen. The poster you can see on the wall (I think it was a poster for one of Broodthaers' exhibition) is mirrored in blank posters laid out on the table, ready to be ripped off their pads and made into copies/alternatives? 

Marcel Broodthaers

This Pistoletto work was intriguing, home/interior features in strange shapes. The white pillar you can see in the foreground is made of stacked shop-bought canvases. There were also a couple of text pieces by Bruce Nauman which were really compelling. One told you to imagine yourself pressing into the gallery wall, meeting yourself pressing in backwards from the other side of the wall.

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Top of my list to see in Vienna was the Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt. I saw it in the Liverpool Tate a while ago. Then I went in with no expectations and was blown away by the absolute beauty of the work. There are parts of it which are incredibly rich and detailed and other parts which are pared right down to a few fainter lines. It was good to see the work again. However, though it is in the building it was made for, it isn't permanently installed in the room it was made for, which is a bit annoying but im sure this is a conservation issue. It was much quieter than in the Liverpool Tate so there was time and space to look at it in more detail.

Beethoven Frieze (image Wikimedia Commons)

We just happened to be walking past this building at the right time to see Olafur Eliasson's Yellow Fog, which is active daily at dusk. Moody, atmospheric and lovely to happen upon.

Olafur Eliasson, Yellow Fog