By Susan Aurinko
Vienna being my favorite city, I could go on and on. I see more here, do more here than any other place, but I’ll try to distill it to the top few things, which isn’t easy. The day I arrived at my hotel, a lovely, secluded place hidden in the center of everything, I unpacked and wandered out with my camera. I’ve stayed at the Hotel Austria, Wien since my sister and I were roaming the cobblestones of small streets ten years ago and stumbled upon it. At this point, after nearly a dozen visits, it’s as much like home as a hotel can get. The staff is warm and are genuinely happy to see me, the service is impeccable, and the rooms charming and very Viennese, right down to the Klimt prints on the walls. When I showed my work in Vienna, staff members went to the show! www.hotelaustria_wien.at Did I mention the great breakfast?
One of the many-splendored variety of seedy bread at breakfast!
As I am a member of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Wien Museum, (actually a conglomerate of 19 museums) I was lucky enough to be here on the day of a Board meeting, which I took at the museum sitting next to the Wien Museum’s visionary Executive Director Matti Bunzl, at his desk, facing the rest of the board on zoom. After the meeting I had a quick dinner and returned to the museum for a concert by members of the Wiener Symphoniker Orchestra. The main museum, which houses virtually the entire history of the city, and has just been completely, marvelously remodeled, currently has a wonderful collaborative exhibition with the Vienna Jewish Museum on restitution of WWII looted and stolen art. The two curators, one from each venue, have created a brilliant but sad look at all that was lost and will never be found. I saw both shows in the suggested order – Jewish Museum, then Wien Museum, the following day.
Other museum visits included the Leopold, which is my favorite art museum, for a show titled Glanz und Elend (Splendor and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany) that covered the period from World War I through the rise of National Socialism and Degenerate Art. I also spent a few hours at the Kunsthistoriches Museum shooting hands in old master paintings for my Gesture series. (see below) The Wien Museum also has a brilliant exhibition on Secession, but not just in Vienna – it traces the secession movements in three key cities – Vienna, Munich, and Berlin. The fluidity of these movements’ members, in and out of one another’s cities and memberships, was fascinating, as was the breaking away of certain key members from all three original groups, creating new secession movements. I also saw a great exhibition at the MAK, which is the ViennaDesign Museum, on sustainability – the entire EU is way ahead of the US in all ways on this crucial subject. For more information on the exhibitions, look here: www.jmw.at,www.wienmuseum.at, www.leopoldmuseum.org, www.khm.at, www.mak.at.
After Johann Michael Millitz, 1754, ready to be printed, framed, and hand embellished.
My After Dirck Santvoort, 1639 in the Members Exhibition at the Arts Club.
And then there are the desserts! Lots of ice cream in wonderful flavors we just don’t get here in the states – Hazelnut, walnut, lavender, rose… and pastries…beyond imagining! My favorite, shown below, is the Kardinal Schnitte – Cardinal slice, which was made for a visit by some famous Cardinal from the Vatican decades ago – it’s what would happen if Lemon meringue pie married a light, sweet cake – absolute heaven! (in fact, you can see that I’d already started eating it before thinking to take a photo!)
There’s so much to do and see in Vienna that it’s always difficult to leave. My second to last morning there, the pretty and very proper breakfast room, filled with people speaking at least five languages, was host to an Estonian motorcycle gang/group replete with leather clothing and more tattoos than I’ve ever seen in one place at one time. When I left to walk out to shoot for the last time, I passed them readying their massive motorcycles for a ride to their next stop, proving my point that there is never a dull moment in Vienna!
Modern meets Ancient at The MAK, Vienna
