150 Years of the MAK: From a collection of examples to an intercreative inspiration museum
MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art
Stubenring 5
1010 Vienna
Austria
Hours: Tuesday 10am–10pm (free admission 6–10pm),
Wednesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
The MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2014. To mark this important occasion, the Museum will present over 2,300 square meters of newly designed permanent exhibition space to showcase the fascinating world of applied arts and its potential as a source of inspiration for other artistic fields. At the center will be the complete transformation of the MAK Study Collection into a large and dynamic MAK DESIGN LAB, to open on 12 May, the exact date of the MAK’s 150-year anniversary. In collaboration with the renowned Viennese design studio EOOS and with the curatorial involvement of IDRV – Institute of Design Research Vienna, the MAK will put applied arts, design, architecture, and contemporary art in novel contexts, with special focus on Josef Hoffmann and the total work of art, the oeuvre of fashion designer Helmut Lang, and topics such as artistic production, industrial design, alternative production methods, the kitchen, table culture, ornament, lettering, and comics.
The dialog between tradition and the avant-garde consistently pursued by the MAK will be plain to see in the reopened MAK Permanent Collection Asia (opening on 18 February) and the MAK Permanent Collection Carpets (opening on 8 April). While the MAK Asia Collection, one of Europe’s most extensive and important collections of art and applied arts from the Asiatic region, will be reopened with a spectacular artistic concept and design by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata, the MAK’s high-caliber collection of carpets—which is among the world’s best known thanks to its focus on unique Persian and Mamluk rugs from the 16th and 17th centuries—is now being presented in an impressive new overall spatial concept by Viennese designer Michael Embacher and with an artistic intervention by Turkish artist Füsun Onur.
In addition to these new permanent collection rooms, the MAK organizes several anniversary exhibitions:
EXEMPLARY: 150 YEARS OF THE MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design, opening on 10 June in conjunction with a show on 150 years of the Museum’s collection exhibitions in photographs;
HOLLEIN, on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the renowned Austrian architect and applied artist Hans Hollein (opening on 24 June); and WAYS TO MODERNISM: Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Their Impact, opening on 9 December.
As collective memories are at the core of every culture, a social media project (starting in March) for the MAK’s 150-year jubilee will invite individuals, particularly those located in Central Europe, to make available their MAK-related private historical photographic and film material (as well as that of their ancestors) via social media channels in order to assist in the documentation and presentation of the museum’s 150-year history. Peter Weibel will compile the material received to create an artistic film that is to be presented both at the MAK and via social media during October 2014.
MAK Director Christoph Thun-Hohenstein: “With the anniversary projects of 2014, we seek to make the MAK’s new positioning visible in a lasting way: by more strongly focusing the content of collection spaces and enriching them in terms of the perspectives and knowledge conveyed, before the backdrop of the museum’s giant collection, as the laboratory of a new, comprehensive definition of design—and by systematically driving forward the dialog between the various disciplines in order to contribute to our society’s positive development.”
