Inaugural exhibition: ‘Gustav Klimt, Gold in Motion’

To mark its opening, Phoenix des Lumières presents an immersive exhibition devoted to the main figures in the Viennese art scene, of which Gustav Klimt was a key figure.

In late nineteenth century Imperial Vienna, Gustav Klimt was one of the principal decorative painters of the sumptuous monuments on the Ringstrasse. At the dawn of the new century, he led the Vienna Secession, a movement that sought to break away from academic art. Both famous and contested, Klimt paved the way to modern painting. The gold and decorative patterns that characterise his works are a symbol of this artistic revolution. The immersive exhibition includes the works that characterise Klimt’s work and made him so famous—his ‘golden phase’, portraits, and landscapes.

The immersive exhibition also presents works by major Viennese artists such as Egon Schiele and Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who were influenced by Klimt’s work. Inspired by the artistic effervescence of the end of the nineteenth century, Schiele advocated a new form of representing landscapes and the human body. Hundertwasser infused his architectural structures and paintings with a symbolic dimension. This inaugural artistic programme invites visitors to immerse themselves in the colourful and luminous works of Gustav Klimt, works by his contemporaries, and those whom he inspired.

Taking visitors on a journey through one hundred years of Viennese painting, the immersive exhibition takes an original look at the works of Klimt and his successors through a presentation of the portraits, landscapes, nudes, colours, and gilding that revolutionised Viennese painting at the end of the nineteenth century and in the century that followed. The exhibition whisks the public back in time to explore the artwork of the Vienna Secession.

Creative Director: Gianfranco Iannuzzi
Created by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto and Massimiliano Siccardi.
Graphic & Animation Design: Cutback
Production: Culturespaces Digital®

Short exhibition: ‘Hundertwasser, in the wake of the Vienna Secession’

The ‘Hundertwasser, in the wake of the Vienna Secession’ exhibition immerses visitors in the work of Viennese artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928 – 2000).

A painter and architect, he was the inheritor of the Vienna Secession, several decades later. He embodied an artistic revival, which was heavily influenced by the revolution instigated by Klimt. His paintings and architectural work, which are firmly rooted in a respect for nature and man, embody the source of life and the elements. Like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, the artist abandoned perspective, using instead a succession of layers, and, like them, he preferred more expressive lines to the straight line, creating irregular forms. He stated that: ‘The straight line is a man-made danger because it is completely alien to mankind, to life, to all creation’.

Hundertwasser’s painting is an explosion of colour that embodies the very source of life and the natural elements, in an endless spiral. His artistic work relating to architectural and human uniformity is reinterpreted using computer graphics and video animation techniques. The area within the Phoenix des Lumières is transformed into a fragmented itinerary of digitised images. The artist’s ideal city gradually emerges on the Phoenix’s monumental surfaces, in a large dynamic fresco that takes shape, composed of forms and colours that appear to the rhythm of the music. Irregular shaped windows animate brightly coloured paintings, and lines create a utopian world. Wandering around the area within the Phoenix, the visitors enter the scene and become part of the work itself through their presence.

Creative Director: Gianfranco Iannuzzi
Created by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto and Massimiliano Siccardi
Graphic & Animation Design: Cutback
Production: Culturespaces Digital®

Contemporary creation: ‘Journey’

The Nohlab production studio has created a digital work entitled ‘Journey’: an experimental journey whose theme is the creation of photons – one of the elementary particles of light. ‘Journey’ shows the transition of the photons through every layer of the eye up to the nerve cells, where they are converted into electric signals.

Direction and Design: Nohlab
Production: Culturespaces Digital®