Wonderland
Until 19 September 2021
Wonderland: the title of a painting by Fiona Rae. A painting that reveals to us in one fell swoop a universe of the unimaginable and mad. Alice in Wonderland, that famous book by Lewis Carroll, reminds us that believing the impossible is simply a question of practice.
Armed with an imagination thus unleashed, the exhibition Wonderland sets off into uncharted worlds. The utopia of a successful life replete with bliss collides with dystopian bare landscapes where isolation and loneliness, melancholy, cruelty, and death reign supreme. Beyond just individual paintings, this exhibition as a whole sweeps us into a wonderland in which our present’s past encounters its own future.
In 1767, the great French Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot for the first time ascribed to art the power to compensate for a general loss of the world. Diderot viewed such compensation neither critically nor with mistrust. He much rather found it comforting inasmuch as it makes human beings’ alienation from religion, nature, and society easier to bear.
Art can do that. Art can inspire and comfort—despite that famous inside had by Lewis Carroll and delivered by his Cheshire Cat … to wit: “We are all mad here.”
Fiona Rae | Wonderland, 2004 | ALBERTINA, Wien – The ESSL Collection © Bildrecht 2021 | © Foto: Buchmann Galerie Berlin
Georg Baselitz | B. für Larry (Remix), 2006 | ALBERTINA, Wien - Dauerleihgabe der Sammlung Viehof © Georg Baselitz
Roy Lichtenstein | Wallpaper with blue Floor Interior, 1992 | ALBERTINA, Wien ©Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Bildrecht, Wien, 2021
Muntean/Rosenblum | Untitled (Before we know it...), 2000 | ALBERTINA, Wien – Familiensammlung Haselsteiner © Muntean/Rosenblum
Maria Lassnig | Die Last des Fleisches, 1973 | Albertina, Wien © Maria Lassnig Stiftung/Bildrecht, Wien 2021
Albert Oehlen | U.D.O. 9, 2005 | ALBERTINA, Wien – The ESSL Collection ©Bildrecht, Wien, 2021
Anselm Kiefer | Wege der Weltweisheit: die Hermannsschlacht, 1993 | Albertina, Wien – Dauerleihgabe der Österreichischen Ludwig-Stiftung für Kunst und Wissenschaft; © Anselm Kiefer und Albertina, Wien
Erwin Wurm | Fat car convertible, 2005 | ALBERTINA, Wien – The ESSL Collection © Bildrecht, Wien, 2021
Franz West | Sitzskulptur, 2004 | ALBERTINA, Wien – The ESSL Collection © Archiv Franz West
Georg Baselitz | Hockender Hund, 1968 | The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna – The ESSL Collection © Georg Baselitz
Markus Lüpertz | Vier Kreuze - dithyrambisch III, 1972 | Private Collection, Düsseldorf | The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna © Markus Lüpertz | Photo © Stefan Fiedler - Salon Iris
Jörg Immendorff | Ohne Titel, 1979 | ALBERTINA, Wien – The ESSL Collection © Bildrecht, Wien, 2021
Marc Quinn | The Selfish Gene, 2007 | ALBERTINA, Wien © Marc Quinn Studio
