The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna
February 2022
February 18–June 19, 2022
The ALBERTINA Museum is dedicating their spring exhibition to Edvard Munch (1863-1944). Titled Edvard Munch. In Dialogue, the comprehensive show is unique in several respects: over sixty works by the Norwegian artist show the impressive oeuvre that is groundbreaking for modern and contemporary art. This is demonstrated by seven important contemporary artists—all greats of the twentieth century—who enter into dialogue with Munch: Marlene Dumas, Georg Baselitz, Andy Warhol, Miriam Cahn, Peter Doig, Tracey Emin, and Jasper Johns. The works selected by the artists impressively illustrate Munch's influence on art up to the present day. They are works that refer to Munch, were influenced by him, and were created in the course of an encounter with him.
Munch's influence is not only related to his melancholic world view: Rather, the focus is on his experimental approach to painting and printing techniques, his unique world of color, pigment, and stroke, which has shaped—and continues to shape—the history of painting. This style makes Munch the most modern artist of the modern age, not to say a contemporary artist of the modern age.
The approaches to Munch are as diverse as the artists themselves. Marlene Dumas, whose work deals with fundamental questions of the human experience and places themes such as love, identity, racism, but also death or mourning at the center of her work, directly follows Munch's thematic focus.
Munch. In Dialogue focuses primarily on Munch's later work. The show follows on from the ALBERTINA Museum's record-breaking exhibitions on Munch in 2003 and 2015 and is supported by the Munch Museet and the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Oslo), as well as numerous other international institutions and private collections.