PRESS RELEASE VIENNA TOURIST BOARD – JUNE 2018

An exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna curated by Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf provides the focal point for the Vienna Tourist Board’s Viennese coffeehouse at Art Basel in Basel from June 14-17, 2018.

The Vienna Tourist Board is partnering with the renowned Art Basel art fair for the sixth time in 2018. Now a regular fixture, its Viennese coffeehouse in the Collectors Lounge puts the capital’s contemporary art scene in the spotlight. This year, the focus at the coffeehouse is on a temporary exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) Vienna. Multi-award-winning US filmmaker Wes Anderson and his wife Juman Malouf, an acclaimed author and designer, were invited to curate a special exhibition in the city featuring outstanding objects from the museum’s collections. The couple’s daunting brief was to pick their favorite items out of the four million exhibits on show at the museum and in its vaults. Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf: The Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures (Nov 4, 2018 until Apr 28, 2019) shows pieces from all 14 of the KHM’s collections, which include the Picture Gallery, the Egyptian and Near Easter Collection, the Coin Collection, the Collection of Arms and Armour, the Weltmuseum and the Ephesus Museum. The Vienna Tourist Board’s Vienna Lounge pays homage to this unusual exhibition. Designed by award winning studio EOOS, the wallpaper in the modern Viennese coffeehouse installation shows original images of pieces in the KHM archives. “It is a special honor for me to represent Vienna and the Kunsthistorisches Museum with this project at one of the world’s most important art fairs,” said KHM
Director Sabine Haag. Vienna Lounge, June 14-17, 2018, Art Basel in Basel, Collectors Lounge, Hall 2, Basel Messe, Messeplatz 10, 4005 Basel

Talk at the Viennese coffeehouse

Vienna Tourist Board Director Norbert Kettner hosted a talk in the Vienna Lounge on June 13, 2018. Emilie Gordenker, Director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery in London and KHM Director Sabine Haag participated in a discussion entitled “Possession Obsession: What makes us collectors?” moderated by KHM curator Jasper Sharp. More on the talk in separate blog post soon.

Role in the international art market

According to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2018 sales at public auction of fine and decorative art and antiques reached $28.5 billion in 2017– with Austria accounting for around 1% of the total by value. This puts the country on a par with Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

#ViennaGoesWes
#ViennaGoesWes

A Wes Anderson experience you’d never expect: since May 2018 the Vienna Tourist
Board and the KHM have been on the lookout for the best Wes Anderson-style images of the Austrian capital, in collaboration with the AccidentallyWesAnderson Instagram page. The style in question is all about a distinct love of symmetry and picture composition. Users can post their contributions using the #ViennaGoesWes hashtag in a classic hashtag campaign. The star prize is a trip to Vienna for two. All of the photos from the campaign and the KHM exhibition can be viewed online at ViennaGoesWes.vienna.info. The website also profiles various locations in the city that have been given a Wes Anderson spin especially for this campaign.

About EOOS

Martin Bergmann (born 1963), Gernot Bohmann (born 1968) and Harald Gründl (born 1967) studied Industrial Design together at the Vienna University of Applied Arts and went on to found EOOS in 1995. Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the name of the studio evokes associations with the Goddess of Dawn and her four-steed chariot. As a research tool, EOOS developed “Poetische Analyse®”, in which designers explore rituals, myths and intuitive images before using them as the starting point for their designs. EOOS approaches design as a poetic discipline locked in a tug-of-war between the arcane
and high-tech.
The company has picked up more than 140 design prizes for its work, including Italy’s Compasso d’Oro, America’s Good Design Award, the UK’s Wallpaper* Design Award, a gold award in Germany’s Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, a gold iF Product Design Award, a Best of the Best rating in the Red Dot Awards and Austria’s Adolf Loos Staatspreis Design. A portfolio of more than 20 patents also bears witness to the studio’s commitment to innovation and its tireless search for fresh solutions.
The MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art paid homage to EOOS in 2015, dedicating its first solo exhibition to the group. In 2016 EOOS’ Social Furniture project formed part of Austria’s Places for People contribution at the 15th Biennale Architettura in Venice. http://www.eoos.com

Contemporary art events in Vienna

Backed by selected Viennese galleries, the curated by 2018 Viennaline festival will be giving pride of place to the city and its most distinctive features from September 13 to October 13, 2018. Focuses include life from the Baroque era to the present day, its political environment and its culturally significant role as a bridge between east and west (www.curatedby.at). From September 26-30, 2018 Parallel Vienna, will shine a light on divergent positions in new and established contemporary art (www.parallelvienna.com).

The international viennacontemporary art fair brings together highly respected galleries, up-and-coming talents and established greats from the art world under one roof, putting the Austrian capital at the center of the contemporary art scene from September 27-30, 2018. With a strong focus on Central and Eastern Europe and unique service, viennacontemporary has established itself as an unmissable fixture on the global art calendar over the course of the past three years (www.viennacontemporary.at). On October 6, 2018 countless museums and galleries throughout the city will stay open from 6pm to 1am when the Long Night of
the Museums returns for the 19th time. The event features a packed program that includes discussions with artists, workshops and exclusive themed tours (langenacht.orf.at). Between November 19 and 25 Vienna Art Week will provide an engaging discourse focused on notions of paradise this year, under the title of Promising Paradise. Highlights include the Open Studio Day, which gives an insight into the day-to-day workings of around 50 workshops and visits to ‘alternative spaces’, which are given over to discovering the cultural significance of independent spaces for art (2018.viennaartweek.at).