The World of Tomorrow Will Have Been Another Present

The exhibition The World of Tomorrow Will Have Been Another Present draws connections between works of classical modernism and contemporary art, between the 1920s and the 2020s. The exhibition features five large-scale installations, five exhibitions in one exhibition, linked together by the participating artists’ shared interest in the topic of time.

Nikita Kadan, Barbara Kapusta, Frida Orupabo, Lisl Ponger, and Anita Witek were invited to select works of classical modernism from the mumok collection and enter into a dialogue with them. In an exchange and in debate, confronting issues against the backdrop of disparate temporal conditions, through formal analogies and aesthetic contradictions, the five artists tackle both historical and contemporary subject matters: be it image politics between propaganda and critique, from careless to sensitive practices of appropriation, body images between identity politics and universalism, or the constitution of society between the desire for clear-cut categories and the complexity of a thoroughly networked world.

Curated by Franz Thalmair.
In collaboration with Nikita Kadan, Barbara Kapusta, Frida Orupabo, Lisl Ponger, and Anita Witek.

Artists: Alexander Archipenko, Hans Arp, Giacomo Balla, Willi Baumeister, Rudolf Belling, Hans Bellmer, Herbert Bayer, Karl Blossfeldt, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brâncuşi, Victor Brauner, André Derain, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp Villon, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Julio González, Juan Gris, George Grosz, Albert Paris Gütersloh, Raoul Hausmann, Florence Henri, Johannes Itten, Nikita Kadan, Barbara Kapusta, Friedrich Kiesler, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, René Magritte, Kazimir Malevich, André Masson, Vladimir W. Mayakovsky, László Moholy-Nagy, František Muzika, Frida Orupabo, Alicia Penalba, Antoine Pevsner, Franz Pomassl, Lisl Ponger, Man Ray, Germaine Richier, Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko, August Sander, Oskar Schlemmer, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Victor Servranckx, Edward J. Steichen, Alexander Stern, Nikola Vučo, Anita Witek, Fritz Wotruba, Ossip Zadkine

Exhibition publication
The World of Tomorrow Will Have Been Another Present
Editors: Franz Thalmair, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Foreword: Karola Kraus; Essays: Karin Harrasser and Franz Thalmair
Works descriptions: Franz Thalmair; Exhibition views: Johannes Puch
Graphic design: Studio Kehrer; Soft cover with open spine binding, 160 pages
Format: 190 × 265 mm
Numerous color images; Language: German/English
Publisher: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Cologne 2025
Release date: June 17, 2025
ISBN (mumok): 978-3-903446-14-4
ISBN (König): 978-3-7533-08647

Contact
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