How are Vienna‘s museum directors “FACING TIME”? Part 3

Behind the Vienna Art Week stands the supporting association “Art Cluster Vienna”. We asked our members how they are facing time in the arts and their institutions. Here are their answers…

Our society is in a time of upheaval. Facing up to these times also means facing up to crises such as climate change, war and democratic fatigue. The MuseumsQuartier with its numerous art institutions invites visitors to take a stand and get involved. To this end, art opens up spaces for reflection on socio-political discourse and presents complex issues in a comprehensible way. Listening, understanding and negotiating take time – even if negotiating often seems more laborious than blindly following, it is time to work on a common, climate-friendly and solidary future for all.

Facing Time: From the future you can see more. At the Angewandte, we are in the act of creating impossible possibilities so that other futures can become visible. Opening the future – our motto for the years ahead – in the arts, design and theoretical disciplines is about reinventing speculation against the probable.

At the turn of the millennium, the vibrant local contemporary art scene was overshadowed by Mozart, Sisi and Schönbrunn. Since 2004, Vienna Art Week has yearly also been setting the pace for contemporary art in the Austrian capital. Back then, this non-profit festival initiated by Dorotheum began with the motto take time – meet art. This year, we are virtually facing this time with the motto Facing Time. All these years, I think Artweek has drawn international attention to the current art scene in Vienna, but also raised the profile of fine art for the local public.
Here’s to more exciting and inspiring times!

Contemporary art is definitively about time. Its power and energy derives from artists’ sense of urgency to address the questions and issues of their age. Right now this sense of urgency is as keenly felt as ever and the Kunsthalle’s exhibitions during Vienna Art Week will reflect this. Among the many subjects they address are questions of mortal time and the impact of technology past and future.

New times – new challenges! Art, in particular, always reacts especially intensively to social changes. But you can also escape these times by looking at old art. In this way, art always fulfills all social needs.

It’s five to twelve. We told ourselves this mantra-like with regard to the the climate crisis until we had to admit: it’s long past twelve. In view of the greatest challenge facing humanity, the question arises: What hour does it strike for culture? Art cannot stop time. Art is anti-time – it breaks through, disrupts, is always new and yet eternal. It must be the tormentor of its epoch and a witness, at best an impetus for change.