TEXT & INTERVIEW DZENANA MUJADZIC | FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №X »STATE OF THE ART« — SUMMER 2023/24
For three decades now, the museum in progress has made it its mission to make contemporary art more democratic and thus accessible to as broad a public as possible. Through its integrative, low-threshold activities at the highest artistic and operational level, the non-profit art initiative transforms media and public spaces into flexible support structures for its projects away from the metaphorically thick walls of traditional cultural institutions.
»The cause of the museum in progress projects lies in the future (loosely based on Beuys)!«, writes Kaspar Mühlemann Hartl in his introductory text to the anthology »museum in progress. Kunst in öffentlichen und medialen Räumen––DURCH EIN ENDE REIN & DURCH DAS ANDERE DURCH [ & DANN NOCH EINMAL ]«, which provides an overview of the works of the museum in progress art initiative to date. The reference to the initially paradoxical-sounding assertion by the great German artist Joseph Beuys »The cause lies in the future« refers to art’s ability to grasp social trends at an early stage and can plausibly be applied to the founding idea behind the museum in progress. After all, if contemporary art is the mediator of something future, its creation, distribution and consumption away from the classic cultural infrastructure also seems logical. Founded by Kathrin Messner and Josef Ortner in Vienna, the art initiative with the programmatic name museum in progress has been operating beyond traditional forms of presentation for contemporary art since 1990 and uses open spaces as temporary spaces for art interventions, for example on billboards, building facades, in concert halls, on television or even on board airplanes.
Martha Jungwirth, »The Trojan Horse«, 2019, »Eiserner Vorhand«, museum in progress, Vienna State Opera,2019/2020
Media-specific, context-dependent and temporary––the practice of museum in progress plays above all with the idea that space for art begins in the mind. »From museum in progress I had learned that museums are first and foremost software and not hardware, and this idea is more contemporary and effective than ever today«, Massimiliano Gioni, currently artistic director of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan and the New Museum in New York, sums it up and continues: »It is extremely interesting that my encounter with museum in progress coincided with the opening year of the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao. The Guggenheim in Bilbao may be better known today, but for me museum in progress will always point the way to the future.« The culturally significant position of the progressive art initiative was recognized early on by leading museums such as the MoMA in New York or the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which already included its works in their collections at the turn of the millennium. Max Hollein, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, describes the project as »… a highly influential, elusive but all the more effective institution since its foundation, always ahead of its time«.
The museum in progress provides a possible answer to the ever-present discourse on the future of museums and classic exhibition spaces in areas such as newspaper art and multiples in magazines. According to the initiative, there is no other institution in the world that has realized groups of works comparable in scope, diversity and quality and furthermore: »It should be emphasized that the diverse works of the international artists were conceived specifically for the media space and do not represent reproductions of artworks, but function as multiples, as independent works in the medium’s circulation. Consequently, the individual newspaper or magazine is an original and collector’s item.«
Anselm Kiefer, »Solaris (for Stanislaw Lem)«, 2023, » Eiserner Vorhang«, museum in progress, Vienna State Opera, 2023/2024
The museum in progress also demonstrates great (socio-political) sensitivity to current events with its exhibition series »Eiserner Vorhang (Iron Curtain)«. Since 1998, this project has transformed the iron curtain of the Vienna State Opera––actually a structural fire protection device designed to protect the stage from spreading to adjacent parts of the building and the auditorium in the event of a fire––into an exhibition space for contemporary art.
The concept of the exhibition series was preceded by the debate surrounding the original iron curtain by the artist Rudolf Hermann Eisenmenger. »At the heart of the controversy was an overarching topic that was only discussed in passing in public: the involvement of Austrian artists during the Nazi era and how post-war society dealt with this legacy«, the initiative’s website explains. This means Eisenmenger’s extensive role in the National Socialist regime––he painted propaganda pictures with swastikas and was awarded an honorary professorship by Hitler––the opacity of the awarding of commissions at the time and the bumpy decision-making process by a largely unqualified jury for this purpose. In fact, the controversial curtain hung prominently and largely unquestioned from 1955 to 1995, until opera director Ioan Holender publicly called for Eisenmenger’s work to be removed as a symbolic gesture. As a result, the art initiative museum in progress developed a proposal that prevailed and is still being realized today: Since then, a new work has been designed each year, which can be seen for one season, most recently by Anselm Kiefer with his work »Solaris (for Stanislaw Lem)«. Past artists have included John Baldessari, David Hockney, Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Franz West, Rosemarie Trockel, Jeff Koons, Tauba Auerbach and Maria Lassnig––names as larger than life as the 176 square meter curtain itself. The applied large-scale images are produced and installed using an innovative process. They are produced on a PVC net, which is fixed to the iron curtain using magnets. This technique means that Eisenmenger’s original iron curtain, which is a listed building in Vienna, remains untouched. Due to the requirements of the Monuments Office, it can be seen for three months at a time during the summer months.
Cao Fei, » The New Angel«, 2022, »Eiserner Vorhang«, museum in progress, Vienna State Opera, 2022/2023
It goes without saying that an equally high-caliber, independent, international jury is responsible for selecting the artists, which––alongside Daniel Birnbaum and Bice Curiger––is also headed by the influential curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Long before he became a superstar of the art scene, Obrist curated many projects as a congenial partner of the then still young art initiative––in which he found ideal conditions to realize extraordinary projects––and has remained with it in an advisory capacity to this day. He describes Josef Ortner, with whom he was on friendly terms until his death in 2009, as a »pioneer among the museum founders of the 20th century. His approach was to go beyond the institution as we knew it and to devise new rituals for spaces in which we encounter art.« In his statement on the museum in progress, he also mentions the Internet as an early form of presentation of art of initiative: »The transmediality of the Internet already contains the idea behind an »immaterial« museum, offering more democratic access to art content beyond rigid media boundaries. With the founding of the digital museum in progress––a virtual exhibition space for contemporary digital art––the art initiative aims to keep pace with its progressive aspirations for itself and describes the project, which is still at a very early stage, as a »experience space for new forms of art« and also »platform for artists working with the latest technologies and digital media«. A current example of the museum in progress ‘s cross-media art presentation is the project »raising flags«, which has been realized since 2023 at various locations, in virtual exhibition spaces and in the media spaces of newspapers and magazines, and for which 35 international artists designed flags, including illustrious names such as Thomas Bayrle, Wade Guyton, Martha Jungwirth, Laure Prouvost, Christian Robert-Tissot and Erwin Wurm.
»raising flags«, museum in progress, Ladakh, 2024
Divided into two project phases, the first part, entitled »National Flags of Ideas«, deals with questions of social coexistence in challenging times, while the second part––»The essence of wind and the wind of change«––deals, as the title suggests, with movement in the wind and the wind of change in the figurative sense––to be shown at numerous locations, including Vienna and Ladakh (India) as part of the sā festival (June 2024) and soon at the festival sommer.frische.kunst festival in Bad Gastein (July 2024). The curators Kaspar Mühlemann Hartl and Alois Herrmann are calling for this to be continued: »Institutions, companies, but also private individuals who have the means to display a flag in a publicly visible manner are invited to participate in the project.« Certainly not a coincidental invitation, considering that the museum in progress was understood by its founding members Kathrin Messner and Josef Ortner as a social sculpture (loosely based on Beuys!), whose understanding results from the »expanded concept of art«, which does not limit art to a completed work, but includes the creative thinking and action of the individual, also in its collectivity. A consideration that the unconventional museum has always included in its work.
