The advertisement for MUMOK: Museum of Modern Art caught my eye because it was a painting of an airstream trailer (by Ralph Goings) that I recognized from my Modern Art History class last quarter. The temporary exhibition is called "Hyper Real". Which makes sense because these paintings look like photographs. At the end of the 1960s in the USA, a group of painters rebelled against Abstract Expressionism by returning to realism in their painting style. Really really realistic. They actually took photos and painted from them. They were able to perfect the photograph in this way and included massive amounts of detail. My head hurts when I think about the time that went into painting every individual hair on a man's head and face. Most of the paintings are slices of typical American life.. which was weird to see in the ultra sophisticated European city of Vienna.
The museum's permanent collection includes Pop Art (with many works by Andy Warhol), Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme and Vienna Actionism. A lot of the stuff we saw looked like garbage or was really disturbing. We left the place reminded why we don't like modern art and wished we went to see something more classic. The highlight of the museum was the Hyper Real exhibit and the actual building, which is mostly what you'll see in our photos.
And this, my friends, wraps up our Vienna trip. In case you're just joining us, we took a break from our posting about our time in Turkey to write about Vienna in honor of Christmas. We last wrote about Pamukkale, Turkey. Next we were in Cappadocia and Istanbul, two incredible cities, and they're coming your way!
- Julia
