VIENNA.- In 2007, the Viennese collectors Gertraud and Dieter Bogner gave mumok part of their collection as a gift – “with no ifs and buts.” With more than a hundred paintings, sculptures, and objects, and three hundred drawings, prints, autographs, artists’ books, and archive materials, this is the largest single donation to the museum to date. Since 2007, the collection has been expanded and complemented. mumok has now invited the Bogners to curate their own exhibition based on the collection, entitled Construction_Reflection.

“It is well known that public budgets alone have long ceased to be sufficient to actively expand our collection. Unconditional support for art, as shown by the Bogners, is remarkable. By giving their collection to mumok they have made a significant contribution to enhancing our profile. Presentations of our collection over recent years have shown that the Bogner Collection has been an outstanding addition in terms of constructivist, concrete, and conceptual art. In 2012 we published a comprehensive overview of the collection with many works by international artists, and now this new exhibition curated by Gertraud and Dieter Bogner themselves is a further contribution to a new understanding of art history over the last fifty years,” says mumok director Karola Kraus.

“In mumok we have found an ideal partner,” Gertraud and Dieter Bogner say. “The works we have donated are not only a perfect fit with the museum’s profile. We are also sure that the museum has the best resources for excellent academic work on the collection and also for the preservation of the works in line with the highest standards. For the museum’s entrance level, we have chosen a selection of works that will show that content and form are irrevocably interlinked categories.”

Construction_Reflection – a Contribution to the Debate on a Politics of Form The works on show present both trends in recent art history and the preferences of the Bogners as collectors. They began by collecting geometrical abstract works and works based on systematic-constructivist processes, and then soon added positions in conceptual art and works that reflected on uses of media. In contrast to contemporary trends, the Bogners always emphasized the “contents” of art as a category in constructivist and abstract art, which is why they see their collection and this exhibition as a contribution to debates on a “politics of form.”

In this exhibition, the interplay between forms and contents, or the reality of form as content, are presented in a number of different interrelated thematic sections. The key motifs are theoretical relations between painting and form, the reflection of history and society, and relations between architecture, sculpture, and abstraction in the tradition of a critical modernism.

Theoretical Relations between Painting and Color
A selection of highly colorful paintings and sculptures also reveals references to theory. Whether in Heimo Zobernig’s monochrome paintings, which are exhibited together with their packaging, or in abstract geometrical paintings like works by Richard Paul Lohse, Jorrit Tornquist, and Josef Albers, picture and color always refer to their surroundings and to their perception. This makes it possible to reflect on the medium of painting that requires the beholder to take on the role of interpreter. This reflexive painting is accompanied by sculptures that translate painterly principles and questions of color theory into three dimensional and abstract-figurative forms, like the geometrical color pillars by Roland Goeschl.

Film Works and Media Art from the Bogner Collection
Reflection on history and society in film and photography in combination with language and sign-based forms of art is seen in works by Peter Weibel, Dorit Margreiter, Frantisek Lésak, and others. Social influences and power structures are given expression here, as is the influence of media realities on personal and collective images of identity.

Symbolic References to Architecture and Media Crossover
A further group of works in the exhibition draws on the tradition of constructivist modernism and exemplifies the critical-analytic and utopian potential of works that link architecture, sculpture, and abstraction in an interdisciplinary manner. Positions like those of Hartmut Böhm, Dan Graham, Stanislav Kolíbal, David Maljkovic, and John Hilliard are included here. Kolíbal’s sculptures, Dan Graham’s Star of David mirror architecture, David Maljkovic’s film installation about the architect Vjenceslav Richter, and Hilliard’s photographic reflection of the four sides of a tower on one surface demonstrate a broad spectrum of symbolic references to architecture and media crossovers. These works mediate between the historical utopias of modernism and the experiences of the present.

Gertraud and Dieter Bogner’s Contribution to International Art History
The Bogner Collection comprises works by artists of different generations and also purposefully includes work by artists from Eastern Europe, allowing comparison and contrast, and thus contributing to a broader and more authentic presentation of both international trends in recent art history and the contemporary art business. The archive and bibliographic materials shown together with the artworks contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the art on show. The exhibition is accompanied by a second catalogue of the collection, entitled Perspectives in Motion. Works to 1945. A DVD edition – Art Space Buchberg, Schloss Buchberg am Kamp – documents the history of the Bogner Collection. It will be screened on January 21, 4 pm at mumok cinema.

Participating Artists
Marc Adrian (1930–2008), Robert Adrian X (*1935), Josef Albers (1888–1976), Hartmut Böhm (*1935), Monika Brandmeier (*1959), José Bréval (*1946), Joerg Th. Burger (*1961) Hans Florey (1931–2013), Herbert W. Franke (*1927), Hans-Peter Feldmann (*1941) Heinz Gappmayr (1925–2010), Tibor Gayor (*1929), Roland Goeschl (*1932), Dan Graham (*1942), John Hilliard (*1945), Hildegard Joos (1909–2005), Thomas Kaminsky, (*1945), Stanislav Kolíbal (*1925), Frantisek Lesák (*1943), Richard Paul Lohse (1902–1988), David Maljkovic (*1973), Dorit Margreiter (*1967), Helmut Mark (*1958), Dóra Maurer (*1937), François Morellet (1926– 2016), Hermann Painitz (*1938), Arnulf Rainer (*1929), Kurt Ryslavy (*1961), Zdeněk Sýkora (1920–2011), Jorrit Tornquist (*1938), Peter Weibel (1944), Heimo Zobernig (*1958)

Curated by Gertraud and Dieter Bogner with Rainer Fuchs (mumok)