Hundertwasser

The exhibition ‘Hundertwasser: in the Wake of the Vienna Secession’ immerses visitors in the work of the Viennese painter and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928– 2000). A painter and architect, he was the inheritor of the Vienna Secession, several decades later. He embodied an artistic revival, which was heavily influenced by the revolution instigated by Klimt. His paintings and architectural work, which are firmly rooted in a respect for nature and man, embody the source of life and the elements. Like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, the artist abandoned perspective, using instead a succession of planes, and, like them, he preferred more expressive lines to the straight line, creating irregular forms. He stated that: ‘The straight line is a man-made danger because it is completely alien to mankind, to life, to all creation’.

Hundertwasser’s painting is an explosion of colour that embodies the very source of life and the natural elements, in an endless spiral. His artistic work relating to architectural and human uniformity is reinterpreted using computer graphics and video animation techniques. The area within the Atelier des Lumières is transformed into a fragmented itinerary of digitised images. The artist’s ideal city gradually emerges on the Atelier’s monumental surfaces, in a large dynamic fresco that takes shape, composed of forms and colours that appear to the rhythm of the music. Irregular shaped windows animate brightly coloured paintings, and lines create a utopian world, in which Nature is the model and Man is at its centre. Wandering around the area within the Atelier, the visitors enter the scene and become part of the work itself through their presence.

Listen to the playlist of the exhibition