Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffman Exhibition at the Correr Museum in Venice

From 24 March 2012 to 08 July 2012

Gustav Klimt in the Sign of Hoffmann and the Secession is the title of the exhibition dedicated to Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, which will be housed at the Venice Correr Museum from 24 March to 8 July 2012. The exhibition is currently being held at the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna and will be soon transferred to Venice thanks to an agreement between the director of the Venice city museums and the Vienna exhibition house. Considered one of the highest representatives of Art Nouveau and a great protagonist of the Viennese Secession, Klimt returns to Venice a century after his participation to the 1910 Venice Biennale and during the year in which the 150th anniversary of his birth is celebrated (1862-2012). The curator of the exhibition is Alfred Weidinger, one of the leading experts on Klimt. The exhibition is organized by the Venice city museums in collaboration with the Viennas Museums that houses one of the most valuable collections of Klimts oil paintings. The Venice exhibition will reveal the genesis and evolution of Klimts works and those who initiated the Viennese Secession, in particular Josef Hoffmann Klimts companion in many intellectual ventures and projects.

The Viennese Secession is part of the series of artistic movements that sprang up across Europe across the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. With different names in each nation, such as Art Nouveau in France and Modernism in Spain, these avant-gardes were characterized by the revival of tradition and the use of new techniques and materials.

The exhibition will therefore present an exceptional cycle of paintings, drawings, furniture and jewels, but also elaborate reconstructions and historic documents, centred on the figures of Klimt and Hoffmann inside the Viennese Secession. The Venice exhibition will display, together for the first time, Judith I (1901) and Judith II (1909 as well as some of the masterpieces of the Vienna gallery and public and private collections amongst them Lady by the fireplace, Lovers, Portrait of Hermine Gallia and The Sunflower. Alongside the exhibition at the Correr Museum, two works exemplifying Klimts strong influence on the Italian figurative culture of the time will be displayed at Ca Pesaro in Venice - Vittorio Zecchins One Thousand and One Nights and Galileo Chinis Spring. Alongside Klimt, the exhibition of the Venice city museums pays homage to the architect and interior designer Josef Hoffmann, who shared Klimts vision of art influencing every aspect of modern life. Starting with examples of Austrias contributions to the Worlds Exposition in Paris in 1900, to which Klimt and Hoffmann took part, the first section of the Venice exhibition illustrates the passage from the decorative style of the Art Nouveau to a more geometric approach by showing, in a juxtaposed manner, the drawings of Paris Exposition and those of the Beethover Exhibition of the 1902 Viennese Secession.

The close collaboration between Klimt and Hoffmann will be further investigated with the display of the projects prepared for the Worlds Saint Louis Exposition (1907 the Kuntschau (1908) and the Rome International Exposition (1911).Hoffmanns art, considered a pioneering example of the Viennese Modernism, will be displayed in Venice with design fragments, drawings and additional documentary material.

There will also be room for Klimts feminine world. Klimt used to call himself painter of women. And the perfect representation of Klimts quest to discover the myriad of womens facets is without any doubt his painting The Kiss.

TICKETSAdults: 12Group concession: 10 (booking required min 15 people)Tickets at 9 for the owners of museum pass and piazza san marco ticketsSchools: 5TIMESEvery day 10.00 am 7.00 pm(last entry one hour before)