Vienna will more than live up to its reputation as a city of art in the fall of 2024. From the end of September, numerous exceptional works of art will be on display in Vienna, which can be admired alongside the extraordinary collections of Vienna’s museums. At the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna and the Albertina, the major fall special exhibitions mark the departure of the General Directors who have shaped their museums for decades.

Rembrandt – Hoogstraten. Farbe & Illusion

8.10.2024-12.1.2025, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

For the first time in its 133-year history, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (KHM) is dedicating a major special exhibition to the Dutch Baroque genius Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). More specifically, it focuses on Rembrandt’s interaction with his extremely talented pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678), who also spent several years in Vienna and enjoyed great success at the Habsburg imperial court. The exhibition focuses on the effect of color and illusionist techniques in the work of Rembrandt and Hoogstraten. It aims to demonstrate how the use of color creates a sense of space and virtual reality. The six Rembrandt paintings currently in the KHM collection will be accompanied by a wealth of Rembrandt loans never before presented in Austria. They are coming from the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A total of 60 paintings, drawings and prints will be exhibited. The large Rembrandt display is the last exhibition to be organized by General Director Sabine Haag, who is leaving the KHM-Museumsverband at the end of the year following a 16-year tenure. She will be succeeded on January 1, 2025 by Jonathan Fine, who was previously the director of the Weltmuseum Wien.

• Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Maria-Theresien-Platz, 1010 Wien, www.khm.at

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Chagall

28.9.2024-9.2.2025, Albertina

At the Albertina, too, it is time for a farewell and a change at the top. Ralph Gleis will take over from Klaus-Albrecht Schröder, who was the Albertina’s General Director for 25 years, at the beginning of next year. Schröder’s final special exhibition is dedicated to the great master of the Russian avant-garde: Marc Chagall (1887-1985). Some 100 works from across all his creative phases show him as an artist who dealt with the most primal and universal themes of life. Born into an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic working-class family in what is now Belarus, the themes of birth, love and death became central aspects of Chagall’s work. The exhibition also places a deliberate focus on war and horror. Chagall’s fantastically poetic visual worlds repeatedly depict animal subjects such as roosters, donkeys, cows and fish. In its third Chagall exhibition – a collaboration with the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf – the Albertina demonstrates that his work, although it seems familiar, continues to puzzle us.

• Albertina, Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Wien, www.albertina.at

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Amoako Boafo. Proper Love

25.10.2024-12.1.2025, Belvedere

The Belvedere will be presenting the works of contemporary Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo (*1984) in its magnificent baroque setting. This will be the first exhibition of Boafo’s work in Europe. The internationally renowned painter is considered one of the most prominent voices in contemporary black art. He paints incomparable portraits of friends, acquaintances and people in public life. Vienna brings Boafo full circle. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 2013, where he spent his formative artistic years and developed his distinctive style, which includes the use of finger painting. References to the Viennese artists of the century Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele can be discerned in his works. Alongside the exhibition in the lower part of the Baroque ensemble, the Belvedere will be integrating some of Boafo’s works into the display collection in the upper palace in order to juxtapose them directly with works by Klimt and Schiele.

Amoako Boafo – his art and his years in Vienna – in the Magazin Vienna, Intl.

•  Unteres Belvedere, Rennweg 6, 1030 Wien
•  Oberes Belvedere, Prinz-Eugen-Straße 27, 1030 Wien, www.belvedere.at

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Gauguin. Unexpected

3.10.2024-19.1.2025, Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien

This fall, Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien will host a major exhibition of Gauguin’s work, the first in Austria since 1960. The exhibition follows Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) from his early days as a Post-Impressionist to his pioneering role as one of the fathers of modernism, and portrays him as an artistic phenomenon with a hitherto little-known wealth of artistic nuances. There will be 80 works on loan from major international museums as well as important private collections, illustrating every facet of Gauguin’s creative work: painting, graphic art and sculpture. The exhibition showcases the Frenchman, who spent a lot of time in the South Seas, as an outstanding artist who influenced the generations that followed him. At the same time, the problematic figure of Gauguin and his attitudes will be scrutinized from the perspective of post-colonialist discourse and debates on sexism and abuse.

• Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien, Freyung 8, 1010 Wien, www.kunstforumwien.at

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More information about current exhibitions in Vienna and an overview of Vienna’s museum scene: https://www.wien.info/en/art-culture/museums-exhibitions

Contact

Helena Steinhart
Media Relations
+43 1 211 14-364
helena.steinhart@vienna.info