VIENNA.- From 11 October 2014 to 1 February 2015, the exhibition Hagenbund: A European Network of Modernism (1900 to 1938) at the Lower Belvedere is meant to document the crucial influence of the Vienna-based artists' association of the Hagenbund on both the national and Central European art scenes between 1900 and 1938. The Hagenbund, subsuming various stylistic developments, became one of the leading associations of modern art as early as 1907. It soon went beyond Neo-Impressionism, representing current tendencies from Symbolism and Expressionism to New Objectivity. The association and its members primarily made themselves known through an open-minded exhibition policy and soon presented major shows highlighting works of international significance. Arnold Böcklin, Emilie Mediz, and Max Liebermann, as well as Polish, Czech and Hungarian artists' association, turned the Hagenbund into an internationally recognised exhibition platform. At the Zedlitzhalle, an exhibition hall reconstructed by Joseph Urban, the Hagenbund launched an active exhibition scene that relied on new sales strategies and rapidly advanced to become one of the most prominent exhibition institutions besides the Secession. Through joint presentations of guest artists from the crown lands and neighbouring countries, the Hagenbund established an early network of European art whose regional stronghold was based in Vienna. When the Secession's impact declined after 1911, the main innovative impulses indeed emanated from the Hagenbund. Modern art in Austria therefore owed numerous relevant exhibitions to the Hagenbund a phenomenon that numbers among those most frequently ignored in Austrian art history.

Reason enough for the Belvedere in its function as an institution that counts art historical research to one of its most important responsibilities to systematically review and study the international network Hagenbund, which formed on a regional level and operated on an international level and to present the findings in connection with works of the collection in this exhibition.

At the turn of the century, Vienna lacked a federal institution, respectively a public collection of contemporary art. Even though the Kaiserliche Gemäldegalerie collected works by contemporary artists, it lacked a guiding principle. For this reason, in 1901 the Secession and the Hagenbund declared themselves in favour of founding a Moderne Galerie. On 2 May 1903 the Moderne Galerie at the Lower Belvedere was openend as an exceptional society event. By means of a number of key works, the exhibition at the Lower Belvedere now seeks to narrate the history of this important artists' association. As artist friends played a decisive role in its context, this is the first show to present Viennese artists next to their colleagues from other Central European countries. 51 objects from the Belvedere's collection are on view in the Hagenbund show, while some of them were purchased for the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere from former Hagenbund exhibitions. A display of more than 180 works both traces the development of art in Vienna and emphasises the art historical dimension of this almost forgotten artists' association. The show illustrates that artists had to be good networkers even in those days in order to be successful and that new things could only emerge from the exchange among colleagues, which made it easier to understand new tendencies and trends. The exhibition rooms at Zedlitzhalle functioned as an important hotspot of Viennese modernism, where participants were engaged in discussions, celebrated, exhibited their works, enjoyed themselves at dances, and, most importantly, established contacts.

"The history of 20th-century modernism in Vienna is closely related to the Secession and the Hagenbund, the two major artists' associations. Frequently reviewed fiercely by art journalists for the presentation of such Expressionist artists as Oskar Kokoschka in 1911 or the artists of the Neukunstgruppe (New Art Group) in 1911/12, the Hagenbund became the vanguard of Viennese modernism albeit for a brief period of time, " explains Agnes Husslein-Arco, Director of the Belvedere.

"Having long been overshadowed by the Vienna Secession, the Hagenbund provided a crucial impetus not only for the Viennese art scene, but also for artists in the neighbouring countries of Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Slovenia during its existence between Harald Krejci, the exhibition's curator, points out.

Following early exhibitions, which included presentations of Czech, Hungarian, and Polish art ranging from Art Nouveau and Symbolism to Neo-Impressionism and Divisionism, the first scandals were caused by Expressionist shows featuring such artists as Schiele, Kokoschka, Kolig, and Isepp. During the years of the war, the Hagenbund lost its exhibition rooms at the Zedlitshalle, which was part of a market hall in Vienna's first district the association was allowed to use for its sales shows. The Hagenbund primarily stood out for its innovative sales strategies, and during the interwar years dexterous networkers were able to make a name for themselves besides members of the Secession and the Künstlerhaus.

It is the goal of this exhibition to present this European network of artists and its activities in an innovative fashion while opening up a new perspective of the development of Austrian modernism above all between the two World Wars. This show therefore rather deals with mutual influences and relations among artists in Vienna, Prague, Munich, Budapest, Lviv, Bratislava, Krakow, Kosice, and Paris than with the rivalry among isms or formal criteria and their artistic classification.

The Hagenbund Research Project
The Hagenbund Research Project, which is based on an idea and concept by Harald Krejci and will run until April 2015, has brought to light astonishing insights: with its comprehensive exhibition programme, the Hagenbund did far more for artists than has been known before. With artists breaking away from the Künstlerhaus, the Hagenbund established itself as a well-networked European platform besides the Secession and first and foremost offered publicity to new artistic movements.

"Thanks to the comprehensive archival research it has become possible for the first time to document the Hagenbund's prolific activities - which comprised as many as 250 exhibition projects instead of only 141 while exploring new avenues scientifically by making the data accessible digitally and carrying out a network analysis, " Agnes Husslein-Arco says.

Today we mainly think of virtual social networks in which we affiliate with specific groups. Personal networks reflect man's age-old desire to exchange views, communicate with others, and share certain interests. But what happens in the background of such social networks? A person is reduced to a data set, and an interest group transforms into a digital network. However, this also offers new possibilities for science to study complex social and historical phenomena.

"The inner dynamics of an artists' association are basically marked by a tensional relationship between progress and the consolidation of artistic positions. The Hagenbund's heterogeneous approach to art it always represented more than one stylistic movement - was programmatic and therefore an essential motor for the association's development," curator Harald Krejci explains. Further inspirations came from artists pursuing important and partly established or widely discussed positions who were invited to take part in exhibitions. Apart from the association's liberal policy, a complex mechanism of external influences including its presence in the media, the political and social changes taking place between 1900 and 1938, and the economic conditions prevalent at the time, contributed to stimulating the artistic field.

For the first time, network analysis will be employed by art history as a tool for the examination of nine historical exhibitions organised by the Hagenbund, so as to convey to the spectators the reassessment of artistic development during the interwar years. Moreover, the show presents the preliminary findings of the Belvedere's two-year research project The Hagenbund as a European Network from 1900 to 1938, which is funded by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank.

Matthias Boeckl, professor of architectural history and theory at the Vienna University of Applied Arts, who has been put in charge of the project and functions as the Belvedere's co-curator, has intensively dealt with the Hagenbund's architecture. "Its impact was rather od an efficient breadth than of a risky depth. As it met with public acceptance, it was frequently more influential than the spectacular manifestations of the avant-garde. The production between avant-garde and mainstream therefore had an important mediating function that has only recently been recognised and honoured. For the milieu in question, the Vienna Hagenbund offered an internationally relevant platform for discussion that was used by Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, German, and French architects," Matthias Boeckl, a connoisseur of modern and contemporary art and architecture, says.

Network Analysis of the Hagenbund
A two-year research project funded by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank has made it possible to illustrate how new and innovative methods may open up new perspectives of artistic development. Historical network analysis provides a tool that has also been applied for the curatorial concept and allows us to trace the Hagenbund's historical innovation in the exhibition.

Through its programme, the Hagenbund considerably contributed to Vienna's cultural life for a period of almost four decades. With its moderate size of some 170 full and 13 extraordinary members and numerous guests, as well as because of its acceptance of residents from outside Vienna as corresponding members, the association clearly distinguished itself from other artists' associations. The Hagnbund's members provided the basis for contacts to other artists and groups of artists who, in the sense of a system of exchange, brought external impetus and international exhibitions to Vienna. Artists' groups invited to Vienna made it possible for the Hagenbund to present its own exhibitions in their respective native towns. Against this background and due to the complexity of the theme, an examination with the aid of network analysis offered itself as an ideal measure to understand the mechanisms behind this system.

Art historical network analysis describes the social relationships among the players involved and explores the resulting structures and patterns. Originally, network analysis established itself as a scientific method in historical sociology, economics, communications, and the natural sciences. In the early 1990s, network analysis proved a popular method applicable to historical themes and sources. In the case of the Hagenbund, research was previously forced to restrict itself to fragments of information scattered across numerous archives, with exhibition catalogues and reviews in daily newspapers and art periodicals providing the only consistent source materials covering the entire period of the Hagenbund. We have now succeeded in bringing these sources together. The new data pool makes it possible for the first time to apply network analysis to the association of the Hagenbund.