Midissage: Picture Exchange and Presentation of the Exhibition Catalogue
Exhibition parcours with Sabine Folie, Claudia Koch, Head of the Paintings Gallery Collection, and René Schober, Head of the Graphic Collection
Around 70 works from the Graphic Collection are replaced by equivalent works for conservation reasons, as well as some partly newly created contemporary works for the exhibition by Alexander Kluge and Megan Francis Sullivan. This offers the opportunity to view the exhibition from a new perspective and to present the newly released exhibition catalogue History Tales. Fact and Fiction in History Painting.
Exhibition catalogue
History Tales. Fact and Fiction in History Painting
Edited by Sabine Folie
With texts by Helmut Draxler, Maha El Hissy, Sabine Folie, Synne Genzmer, Eva Kernbauer, Claudia Koch, Sven Lütticken, Alexander Roob, René Schober, Bernd Stiegler, Gudrun Swoboda
German / English, c. 380 pages, c. 300 colored illustrations, softcover, VfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, Vienna
Price: 45 Euro
The publication will be available in the Paintings Gallery's shop from 7.3.2024 or can be ordered at kunstsammlungen@akbild.ac.at.
History Tales. Fact and Fiction in History Painting explores the representation of history in terms of identity and nation. How is the rise and fall of civilisations depicted? How is the hubris of humankind allegorised? And what sort of media transformations has the invention of photography and film brought about on the representations of myths, heroes, heroines, rulers and sovereigns as well as on pivotal historical events since the 19th century right through to the present day?
The exhibition examines history painting in the light of the Academy’s own historical collections – its Paintings Gallery, Graphic Collection, Plaster Cast Collection – and prominent loans from museums as well as of works by contemporary artists. The capacity of the history painting and its variations in the age of mass media to oscillate between fact and fiction and make historicity itself the subject matter of the image is examined from today’s perspective.