The Leopold Museum in Vienna houses one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art and the world’s largest collection of work by Egon Schiele with a substantial number of works by Gustav Klimt (of whom Schiele was a protégé) and other modern artists and furniture by designers such as Olbrich, Hoffmann and Moser. Housed in a modern building in the Museums Quarter of Vienna, designed by architects Manfred and Laurids Ortner as if it was a floating cube, clad in white shell limestone from the Danube, the galleries of the museum connect to the outside with views out and inwards to the large central atrium at the heart of the building adjacent to the staircase which links all the floors.
The Museum balances permanent galleries with a substantial changing programme of special exhibitions, recently one on the artistic relationship between Egon Schiele and his model Wally Neuzil and currently a major exhibition running through the summer showing the work of the British artist Tracy Emin complimented by her personal selection of works by Egon Schiele, highlighting the rebellious similarities in expression between the two artists.
Following on from her recent successful exhibition in the White Cube Gallery in London, this exhibition contains more than 80 works, including items from that exhibition and new work completed this year, the centre-stage being her installation “It’s Not the Way I want to Die” from 2005. “Where I Want to Go” is the first comprehensive exhibition in Vienna of Tracy Emin’s work and the juxtaposition with the selected works from Egon Schiele is fascinating. It shows how fresh Schiele’s work remains today despite the fact that he died almost 100 years ago in 1918.
Tracy Emin photographs copyright)