Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design ed. by Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design ed. by Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz Heidi Hakkarainen Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design. Edited by Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz. New York: Routledge, 2023. Pp. 278. Cloth $136.00. ISBN 9781032010526. The volume Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design brings together a number of essays that look into neglected and forgotten aspects of Viennese modernism from various perspectives. It expands the understanding of Viennese modernism by introducing and analyzing institutions, phenomena, and actors that have previously been understudied. The contributors of this edited collection include renowned academic experts who provide a rich variety of case studies that range from Max Oppenheimer and female artists participating in the secessionist and expressionist movements to Wiener Wohnkultur and the reception of Josephine Baker in interwar Vienna. The aim of the book is thus to challenge the grand narrative of Austrian modernism by looking into ideas, aspects, and achievements in Viennese modern art history that have been forgotten, overlooked, or deliberately omitted from narratives that have constructed the cultural memory of Viennese modernism. At the same time, as the front cover portraying the Vienna Secession building circa 1945 suggests, the book frames Viennese modernism within a larger historical framework that spans World War II and into the present. As the editors of the volume, Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz, remind us in the introduction, when the narrative of Viennese modernism around 1900 emerged after World War II as a counterpoint to National Socialism, museum exhibitions and visual culture played an important role in constructing Vienna 1900 as a site of memory in the sense of lieu de mémoire popularized by Pierre Nora. Museums and art institutions took part in shaping the cultural memory of Vienna around 1900 by supporting established art-historical narratives that centered around iconic figures such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka. By looking into the construction of cultural memory of fin-de-siècle Vienna from the perspective of art history, Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design aims to re-evaluate and widen the main narratives and interpretations of Viennese modernism. The book is thus dedicated to the erasure of marginalized artists and their return to the narrative of Vienna 1900 (1). The book proceeds in four sections. Part One discusses the erasure of Jewish artists and critics from the cultural memory of fin-de-siècle Vienna and continues an ongoing [End Page 497] academic discussion on the critical role of Jewish influence on Viennese modernism by focusing especially on visual arts. Although discussion of the Jewish contribution to the cultural production and art scene in fin-de-siècle Vienna has been going on for decades, this book brings forward important new insights on the topic and contextualizes them carefully within the framework of the painful history of the Holocaust. The acknowledgment and commemoration of Jewish culture and individuals in Vienna are vital, especially as physical landmarks and symbolic narrative signs of the Jewish past have been pushed away or even removed from the physical city space and popular marketing brand of Vienna, as Steven Beller poignantly demonstrates in his essay. The contributors to the book make a collective argument that the erasure of Jewish artists from the cultural landscape and memory of fin-de-siècle Vienna is intertwined with editing out female achievements in the visual arts. Part Two turns to erasures relating to gender and sexual identification. Essays in this section shed light on female artists who were marginalized in the blockbuster exhibitions in the 1980s but who are returning in recent exhibitions. The essays in this section bring forward especially the handcraft movement in the interwar period, which included many female artists, and the fascinating story of Viennese Kineticism, which is discussed by Rae di Cicco. Part Three continues to offer a critical discussion on the erasures of other marginalized figures and movements from the narratives of Viennese modernism and avant-garde production. The essays in all three sections provide new insights into actors outside the canon of modern Viennese art, architecture...