In summer 2022, the Wien Museum is showing several exhibitions on the theme of public space. They look at our streets, squares and parks from different angles; some of them take place there and not in museums. Here we present four exhibitions on urban history and furniture as well as public space with its uses and actors.
Wien Museum exhibitions in and about public space
Life in the city takes place in different spaces. One of these – public space – seems to be the theme running through the Wien Museum’s exhibition program in summer 2022. Public space is part of the exhibitions in different ways and is more or less in focus. Two of the exhibitions take place in the urban space itself, while two others focus on life in the squares, streets and parks. The different perspectives can be particularly interesting in summer, when some people are likely to spend more time in public spaces.
Public space through the ages
Since May 18, 2022, the Wien Museum MUSA would like to immerse visitors in the history of Viennese street photography and thus the city itself. In the exhibition “Augenblick! Street Photography in Vienna”, the museum will be showing photographs from its own holdings together with exhibits from national and international photography collections. The photographs are intended to show visitors how the city of Vienna and life on its streets have changed over time – from the 1860s to the present day.
According to the museum, the show includes iconic images of Vienna as well as photographs that convey everyday life and the lives of its inhabitants. The photographs capture various moments of urban life – the hustle and bustle of the streets and squares, encounters and amusements. In addition to a visual journey through the history of Vienna, the exhibition also aims to show how the medium of photography has helped to shape and spread new images of the city, according to the museum. Overall, the exhibition paints a new portrait of the Danube metropolis. It will continue to run until October 23, 2022.
The park bench – seating and social space
Who owns public space? The exhibition in the Wien Museum’s Startgalerie NEU sees the artistic works on display there as positions on this discussion, among other things. The show “Take a seat! The park bench as social sculpture” has been running since July 7. At its center is the park bench, an everyday and ubiquitous part of public space in cities. According to the gallery, there are 19,884 benches in Vienna’s parks alone. Park benches have various functions and characteristics in public spaces – be it as a place to sit or as a design object, as a social space or as a structuring element that sometimes also prevents certain uses through “hostile design”.
Alina Stmljan and Vincent Elias Weisl, both Curatorial Fellows at the Wien Museum’s District Museums Department, curated the exhibition. At the invitation of the curators, young artists explored the furnishing of Vienna’s urban space. They created works in various media: photographs, installations and furniture that visitors can use. The show can also be seen until October 23, 2022, admission is free.
Public space to the power of two at the Wien Museum construction fence
The Wien Museum on Karlsplatz has been closed since 2019; it is due to reopen at the end of 2023 following renovation and refurbishment. In the meantime, the museum is using the fence around the construction site as an exhibition space. In 2022, the exhibitions at Karlsplatz Open Air will be entitled “Urban Cultures”. As in the previous year, the construction fence will serve as a support material for street art.
This year’s exhibition will not only take place in public space – it will also focus on it. According to the museum, various artists have explored Karlsplatz, where the construction fence is located, and its various uses in two consecutive parts. While the 2021 exhibition “Urban Natures” focused on the interplay between the city and nature, the public space is now being questioned and its design and protagonists examined. In “Part I”, which can be seen until July 31, the street artists David Leitner and Perk_up do just that. From August 11, visitors will then be able to see the new design of the construction fence by the collective of feminist street artists “Feminist Killjoy Vienna”.
Urban history on site
The art on the Wien Museum’s building fence is not the only exhibition in public space in Vienna this summer. The traveling exhibition “Der Brunnenmarkt im Wandel. gestern → heute → morgen” is designed in such a way that the theme and presentation location coincide: Visitors* should be in the place whose story is being told. The exhibition is based on research into Brunnenmarkt by sociologist and cultural scientist Cornelia Dlabaja from the University of Vienna. Together with Vincent Weisl, also curator of the above-mentioned exhibition in the Startgalerie, she conceived the traveling exhibition. The service center for the district museums at the Wien Museum – “District Museums Reloaded” – and the Institute for European Ethnology at the University of Vienna cooperated on this exhibition.
The exhibition aims to convey the city’s history from different perspectives. It tells “the previously untold story of change, work and migration, protest, urban development and everyday working life on the market”, as can be read on the project’s own website. An online exhibition related to the project can also be found here. The exhibition will travel through Ottakring, Vienna’s 16th district, over the summer and into the fall. From Yppenplatz (July 1 to August 1) to Richard-Wagner-Platz (August 2 to September 15) and finally to Garage Grande (September 16 to October 31).
This year, the city of Vienna was also awarded the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize 2020. Read more about the prize and the jury’s statement here.
