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Movement and the City: Vienna - New York 1920's
Press Release
Movement and The City, Vienna/New York, an exhibition of paintings and drawings from the 1920s and early 1930s by Austrian artists, will open on February 7 at the Rachel Adler Gallery and will continue through March 7, 1987.
The exhibition focuses on a little known yet innovative school of Austrian artists who under the close guidance of Franz Cizek, an artist and educator from the School of Applied Arts in Vienna, created a movement which was referred to as WIENER KINETISMUS. At a time when Europe was leading in the art movements of Cubism, Constructivism and Futurism, Vienna was shielded by th more conservative demands that art serve a utilitarian and decorative purpose. It was in the midst of this climate that Cizek developed, within the framework of the School of Applied Arts and the Museum of Arts and Crafts, a theory of art which under a disciplined format would permit the student to examine and refine his sense of perceptions.
Cizek's method was concerned especially with capturing simultaneous movement and communicating it to the spectator. While the Futurists were concerned with giving the impression of movement, KINETISMUS was intent on seizing the flow of movement and its varying rhythms with a distinct clarity thereby imparting to the viewer a sense of the vital and unified spirit of life.
The artists represented in this exhibition all attended Cizek's classes and were deeply committed to his theory and its advancement. Unfortunately, after World War II, this school was not able to survive due in part to the poor economy and the dispersion of its followers. Between the wars, two of the school's students, Erika Giovanna Klien and Elisabeth Karlinsky, visited New York and included in this exhibition are rare drawings of the city created in the KINETISMUS method. One of the artists, Klien, remained in New York City and taught at Dalton and Spence. She also exhibited at the New School of Social Research.
Most of the artists in the exhibition are being presented for the first time in New York. The exhibition affords the viewer with a unique opportunity to examine a movement which though not well-known nevertheless had an impact on the history of Austrian art and its schools.
Otto Erich Wagner
Erika Giovanna Klien |
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Movement and the City:
Vienna - New York, 1920s
essay by Stephen S.
Garmey (1987)
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