ALFREDO JAAR

Red Vienna

Wed, 09.06.2021–Sun, 05.09.2021

MAK – Museum of Applied Arts

In his exhibition on Red Vienna, Alfredo Jaar addresses socio-political and urban planning developments of the city of Vienna in the interwar period. Consequently, the artist, who was born in Santiago de Chile and lives in New York, places the focus of this monumental, 35-part photo series on achievements in the field of social housing that appear downright utopian.

“I started visiting and photographing Red Vienna during my first trip to Vienna in the mid-eighties. As an architect and artist, Red Vienna exercised an immediate fascination on me as soon as I discovered the first buildings. I walked for hours and days, searching for its traces, impressed by its actuality, moved by its survival.”

Alfredo Jaar, 2004

With intensive colors, Jaar looks back on local politics initiated by a social democratic municipal government that was able to prevail against the politically conservative climate of the time and took up the cause of human dignity and collective responsibility. For his exhibition at the MAK, the artist developed a multilayered spatial installation documenting his long-standing artistic study of Red Vienna.

Jaar bathes the entire exhibition space in an intensive red light creating an atmosphere that symbolically illuminates the model of society of Red Vienna. The work Jaar created specifically for this exhibition also adds to this atmosphere: The nine letters of “Red Vienna” are inscribed as abstract symbols made of red shining neon in squares that can be understood as building blocks of Red Vienna—individual but equal and constitutive elements that together are more than the sum of their parts. The neon letters are variable and can be arranged in different figurations. Last but not least, they bring the multitude of shining neon signs to mind that have been shaping the image of modern cities since the 1920s.

Curators: Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Bärbel Vischer

OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION

Tue, 8 June 2021, 6 p.m.
Free admission

Media

<BODY>Alfredo Jaar<br /><em>Untitled</em> (1988–2004)<br />Photo series on Red Vienna<br />© Alfredo Jaar<br /><br /></BODY>

Alfredo Jaar
Untitled (1988–2004)
Photo series on Red Vienna
© Alfredo Jaar

<BODY>Alfredo Jaar<br /><em>Untitled</em> (1988–2004)<br />Photo series on Red Vienna<br />© Alfredo Jaar<br /></BODY>

Alfredo Jaar
Untitled (1988–2004)
Photo series on Red Vienna
© Alfredo Jaar