23 December 2024
 The city of Vienna is currently full to bursting with tourists. Vienna is a favorite place in Europe to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere. Especially the tourists who stay only for one day to visit the Christmas markets are mentioned in the media. Measures such as limiting group sizes in cruise tourism are being considered. In the last two weeks, the situation for the Viennese on the streets, in the subway, in the restaurants or at the Christmas markets has become increasingly tight. Fashion.at decided to leave the city to check out the situation in Salzburg and whether the crowds are pushing through the streets like in Vienna. The train trip began as an odyssey, but it ended up on schedule. One train - a Viennese inner-city express - was canceled due to vandalism. The connection to the main station was lost and a completely new route had to be chosen. On the other train from Vienna to Salzburg, people were sitting on stairs and on the floor. Fashion.at was lucky and soon found unused seat reservations. Sneezing, coughing and blowing noses were the order of the day, and not just because of the current flu wave in Austria. It seems that the cold - and not just the flu - is trying to catch everyone. Arriving in Salzburg, the first destination was the Museum der Moderne on the Mönchsberg. An elevator takes people up to the museum and its terrace, which offers an impressive view of the city and its hills, to the right the Nonnberg with the huge Salzburg Fortress and the snow-capped mountains of the Alpine region in brilliant blue and white in the background. The outside of the museum attracted more people than the inside. Perhaps it was not only a lack of interest in culture; the price of 14 euros for admission to the museum is not paid by the average tourist, who is probably more interested in following the traces of Mozart's life and work in the streets of Salzburg than in investing in a ticket to experience our world, our society, from unexpected new angles, as contemporary artists stage for their audiences. Moreover, these experiences may be unpleasant. Inside, a first glance at the first exhibition and its descriptions gave the impression that 'Breaking Free,' the title of the group show, was a recycling of Viennese art collections and earlier exhibitions. And this impression persisted on all three floors. It was like walking through curatorial work following the practice typical for Vienna with topics on important agendas of culture politics such as climate, diversity, gender, and the inclusion of queer lifestyles. Some of the artists were already known from Vienna. Fashion.at felt almost at home. It was the agenda of art curators known from international exhibitions and collections. The exhibition 'Breaking Free. The Collections' was presented by Generali, which in 2014 handed over the collection of the Generali Foundation, formerly located in Vienna, to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg. Members of the Foundation's curatorial staff from Vienna are the brains behind the show's concept. The intellectual structure seemed to be built out of the schoolbook - a good one. Very well behaved - thank you. No surprise, everything is on track - for those who regularly visit art museums, fairs and galleries. The exhibition seemed to be cleverly curated mainly for people with a loose relationship to art. The 'shoehorns' that make it easy for the audience to slip into the questions of our world are the themes of 'play' and 'sports'. Fashion.at walked through 'Breaking Free' and touched plants to playfully interact with the artwork by Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, watched the video of Carola Dertnig's performance in a room with one of Dertnig's sculptures exploring movement as a form of self-awareness and framed by textile rolls of stocking fabric sponsored by Wolford on the wall, and followed the invitation to take a seat on a wobble to play with the sculpture as intended by Austrian artist David Moises (born in 1973): "You are welcome to take a seat on the Wobbel." The childish game played by adults in the context of the exhibition can make people aware of their interdependence. The seat goes up or down depending on who sits on the other end. The concept of the group exhibition to shed light on our society through games, sports and the rules of community building activities works. One advantage was that Fashion.at was almost alone in all these rooms and also in the exhibitions on the other two floors - maybe two or three other visitors came along. That was a stroke of luck - but it can also be interpreted as a bad sign for the cultural interest of the Salzburgers and their guests. In Vienna, the crowds are pushing through the exhibitions of the major museums. The Museum der Moderne is one of the most important museums in Salzburg, but here it's quite relaxed. Fashion.at saw all the exhibitions from 'Carola Dertnig. Turn on the Move', 'Queering Space', 'Rose English' to 'Breaking Free'. (Details about the exhibitions and how long they are open are published on museumdermoderne.at.) While Fashion.at played and relaxed in the museum, the 'Perchten' - devil-like creatures dressed in animal fur and wearing horn masks, named after the legendary female figure 'Frau Perchta' - were running through the Christmas market on Domplatz and Residenzplatz to drive away evil. Perhaps this was the reason why Fashion.at had the museum's playrooms to itself. The crowds on the full to bursting Domplatz were busy with another important play - a folkloristic play about good and evil. Image: View of Salzburg from the terrace of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg on the Mönchsberg. Photo taken on December 21, 2024 / © Fashion.at. |
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