If you read my column or have done so since I began writing it a couple of years ago, you will undoubtedly know that Vienna is my favorite city. This summer was no exception – Vienna once again showed me why it was once again voted second most livable city in the world, right behind Copenhagen.
And so, in my favorite city for a week, I spent time on the street with my camera, but also, due to the almost 100-degree heat, went to my fair share of museum shows too, cooling off in those darkened spaces. My first stop, as it always is, was the Wien Museum. I had lunch with Museum Director Matti Bunzi, who some of you may remember from his time with Chicago’s own Humanities Festival. Being on the Board of the American Friends of the Wien Museum has given me a chance to get to know this altogether charming and remarkable man. We ate at Trude und Tochters, the gourmet restaurant within the museum, where the chef once again had me raving about his creations. Then Matti went back to the daunting task of running not one but 17 museums under the Wien Museum umbrella, and I saw the museum’s current shows. First, die Donau Insel, a fascinating history of the manmade island that keeps the Danube from flooding Vienna. A feat of engineering genius, the island has also become the favored place for outdoor summer fun. Just 13 miles long and 820 feet wide, the island is home to all kinds of activity. Next, I saw the other temporary show, Schiele & Peschka, regarding the artistic and personal relationship between Egon Schiele and his brother-in-law Anton Peschke, on and off their canvasses – Spellbinding! www.wienmuseum.org
The next day I had lunch Alexandra Pferrerle, one of the other American Friends of the Wien Museum Board I’ve gotten to know and always see when I’m in Vienna, where she lives and runs a program for American students studying abroad there. We went to a charming outdoor bistro called Fischerie, on Praterstraß. It’s always great to see friends in person, especially when the rest of the year they are only faces in Zoom meetings! Then I was back on the street shooting. The Viennese found great ways to stay out of the sun if not the heat, umbrellas being one tactic. https://www.fischerie.at/
My other favorite museum in Vienna is the Leopold. The day I went there the temperature was close to 100 so I walked the several miles through the Stadtpark, sheltering in the shade under the green canopy of the trees. Vienna’s parks are numerous, lushly beautiful and fortunately frequented more by locals than tourists. The Leopold had two amazing exhibitions – Premier!, featuring works from the Central Bank of the Republic of Austria, whose vast collection, with an emphasis on art of the interwar years, is stunning. In the section on The New Objectivism, I loved a piece by Christian Schad, featuring a striking woman with a fan – very timely for the heatwave in Europe! If you’re going to be in Vienna, I highly recommend this show, which doesn’t close until mid-October. The second show was Gustav Courbet: Realist and Rebel, which closed just a few days after I left Vienna. This too was a marvelous exhibition, Courbet was indeed a rebel, bucking the norm by painting anything and everything in a graphic realistic style. His nudes, for the time in which they were painted, were groundbreaking and scandalous, his self-portraits rather self-indulgently moody. His landscapes, including my favorite, the dynamic Waterspout, and the pastoral Water Stream were standouts. I followed my visit to the Leopold with lunch on the (hot) terrace of the Pavillion in the Volksgarten, where I was refreshed by a cold Almdudler (an Austrian herbal soda) and a beautiful salad. It didn’t escape me that I sat on that exact terrace the first time I went to Vienna 25 years ago! www.leopoldmuseum.org
Last but not least, I went to the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) where there was a gorgeous collaboration between the MAK and Van Cleef and Arpels in which the curators from both institutions gathered pieces from each of their permanent collections that felt like they belonged together. Of course, all the Van Cleef and Arpels jewelry was dazzling, but the best of the vitrines placed the pieces alongside one another to carry on a dialogue between the jewels and the MAK’s items, from textile designs to Art Deco and Art Nouveau objects, to ancient pots and fashion. The exhibition was brilliantly designed by Paris based Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane, a Japanese designer based in Paris, and was absolutely stellar right down to the stars twinkling in the ceiling of the final section titled “Cosmic.” I am mad for collaborations, and this is yet another example of how the sum of two parts is often far more than either separately. www.MAK.at
In addition to the various museum visits, I spent time on the oh-so-hot streets capturing the reflections I so love as well as a few amusing images – below, two favorites. As it was too hot to wear scarves, the dozen or so I traveled with remained in my suitcase, but I did make many images that will undoubtedly find their way into upcoming scarf designs! After a week, I left Vienna via two trains for a stay at MayrLife, the medical resort at the other end of Austria, on beautiful Lake Altaussee in the Austrian Alps. I’ll give you a glimpse into that remarkable place as well as a few days in Munich in my August column. Until then, stay cool and live creatively!
