Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK) – Vienna, Austria

I have to be frank. I did not enjoy MUMOK. The building is quite cool, a different heavy block of stone in an era of transparency and steel glass. But the collection’s main focus is collages, visual and acoustic materials from the 1960s movements of Fluxus and Viennese Actionism. Not my favorites! In particular, I don’t like the Viennese Actionism, considered the most important Austrian contribution to international avantgarde in the 60s. The artists turned to working directly with real bodies, objects and substances. The outcome is a collection of bloody and disgusting body parts, revolting photos, disturbing videos, which in my opinion escape any esthetic meaning. This exhibit really turned me off.
Outside: Built by the Viennese architect studio Ortner & Ortner in 2001, from the outside the building appears like a dark monolithic block of grey basalt lava. Its roof curves down on the edges. It is very different from everything else in the square. It is cool! A wide outdoor stairway leads to the entrance terrace.

Inside: The large entrance hall is at mid-level. The various levels are connected by footbridges. The upper level receives natural light through a large opening in the curved ceiling. The other slit windows and the panorama window in the uppermost floor give visitors a view to the outside. I have to say that the building is the best part of the museum.
The Classical Modernism includes some good works but it is quite limited, not being the focus of the museum. You can find Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism (Henri Laurens, Giacomo Balla), Bauhaus, Dada and Surrealism (Duchamp, Ernst, Magritte). There are also works by Picasso, Giacometti, Mondrian, Klee, Bacon, Pollock, Fontana, and Piero Manzoni. There is a bit of Pop Art (Andy Warhol’s “Orange Car Crash,” and my favorite Robert Indiana’s “Love Rising - Black and White Love. For Martin Luther King”). And there is Lichtenstein, and Oldenburg.
But the core of the permanent collection is the Fluxus movement and the Viennese Actionism. I already said something above about the latter. Fluxus is an art genre, which came into being in 1962 and was particularly influenced by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, George Brecht and Dick Higgins. Their work is often collage-like composition of event sequencing, also called 'concerts' because acoustic, choreographic and musical forms of expression flow together in it. Nam June Paik’s “Klavier Integral,” a piano with several objects pasted to it, is a classical piece of Fluxus art. It is still worth dropping by to check temporary exhibits, but I would not say this is the one of the main attractions in Vienna.
(Last visited 05/2008)