MUMOK: Jakob Lena Knebl and mumok collection “Oh …” + Hannah Black “Small Room” + Július Koller “One Man Anti Show”

Vienna, November 25, 2016 – April 17, 2017 (Koller), March 17 – June 18, 2017 (Black), March 17 – October 22, 2017 (Knebl), http://www.mumok.at

Attending the opening of the “Oh..” show was well worth it. It was astonishing to what lengths a museum can go in attempting to attract audiences, especially the younger generations. The modern and contemporary art collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig housed in the museum is impressive, but probably starts to collect dust. The average tourists who comes to the mammoth MuseumsQuartier complex will likely prefer the site-specific collection of Schiele and Klimt in the Leopold Museum next door. The Pollocks, Vasarelys, etc. are nice, but not so unique to Vienna. Thus the museum decided to invite Jakob Lena Knebl to provide a “contemporary” hanging of the collection, interlaced with the artist’s own work, located in the realm of camp and queer aesthetics. The result was very “oh…” and it was mostly reminiscent of an 20^th century art history trash pile: mumok collections were piled up and used as simple building material for constructing Knebl’s world of glittering mirrors, leather surfaces and exposed body parts. To make sure that this contemporary exhibition attracts a contemporary crowd, the museum held a free public opening event with live music and free drinks. The waiters serving the beverages have been the fastest waiters I have ever seen in all Austria – respect!

I wondered about the economics of this. Probably it has to do something with visitor numbers and generating some positive PR spin. The show itself produced rather mixed feelings and left me wondering what this was all about.

Hannah Black’s Small Room appeared rather modest in contrast to Knebl’s opulence, locating itself in the realm of techno-science post-internet art. The topic had something to do with cells and biology. Visually, I found there was an issue with the illumination of the exhibit. One half of the room contained brightly lit hanging latex sheets reminiscent of skin. The other half of the room was semi-dark, with three video screens mirroring the three latex sheets hanging at the other end of the room. The illumination disturbed the projections, and the sound echoed in the long empty space. Nevertheless, I appreciated mumok’s attempt at displaying most recent contemporary art.

Three of the upper floors of the museum were dedicated to a solo retrospective of Julius Koller, a Slovak conceptual artist  from the 1960s/70s. The amount of artworks was impressive and I took away that Koller really liked to collect and catalogue whatever touched his hands, from newspapers to consumer product packages. He had a sense of humor and enjoyed taking photos of himself (with clothes, not like Knebl’s exhibitionist variant). He grew the same beard for over 30 years. He was also rather good at self-promotion, executing a direct mail campaign directed at the most influential curators and museums worldwide.