“Museums are like rearview mirrors”
Discussion in Budapest with representatives of Vienna’s Leopold Museum
MúzeumCafé 39.
Last year the Museum of Fine Arts staged a major exhibition with the title Egon Schiele and His Age. On display were works by Schiele (1890-1918) and other renowned artists of turn-of-the-century Vienna. The bulk of the material came from the Leopold Museum in Vienna. After the opening MúzeumCafé spoke to Elizabeth Leopold, widow of the collection’s founder, Tobias G. Natter, director of the museum, and Franz Smola, its chief curator, to discuss new, 21st-century expectations vis-à-vis museums, transformed museum structures and the difficulties of museum financing, the perception of the artistic life of turn-of-the century Vienna and Budapest in Austria and Hungary today, the assessment of Schiele and the differences between last year’s Schiele exhibition in Budapest and this year’s forthcoming one in Vienna. In the period since the discussion significant changes have occurred in the leadership of the Viennese museum – last October Mr Natter resigned from his post in protest over the connections between the museum and the Nazi-linked Klimt-Ucicky Foundation and the failure to reach agreement over the matter within the institute. As we believe that there is no connection between the discussion in Budapest and later events, and as serious matters of interest to both the profession and the public were involved, we have decided to report the discussion. The theme of the talks involved a comparison between the Hungarian government’s plans to establish by 2018 a major MuseumQuarter (MQ) in Budapest, comprising five buildings and six museums, and the experience of the similar MuseumsQuartier, established in Vienna a decade ago. Museums-Quartier is a brand, which needs something in focus which can then be radiated, nationally and internationally.