A few years ago I used to live only a couple of city blocks away from one of the most beautiful palace grounds of Vienna – which also happens to house one of the world’s leading museums: The Belvedere Museum. The Belvedere is a historic building complex set in a Baroque park landscape in the 3rd district of the city, on the southeastern edge of its center. Originally built by Prince Eugene of Savoy as a garden palace for the purpose of princely representation, the Upper Belvedere became one of the first publicly accessible museums in the world under Maria Theresa. Showing Austrian art in an international context, as envisaged the founding idea of the Modern Gallery, which was established in the Lower Belvedere in 1903, is still a programmatic concern of the renowned cultural institution today.
At the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, the change in the concept of a museum over three centuries can be traced in an exemplary way
The Belvedere Museum is one of the oldest museums in the world as well as an important venue for contemporary art. While following the institution’s mission to preserve the past, they also seek to break new ground. Standing as a mediator of history and as an inconvenient interrogator of the present, the Belvedere Museum is the country’s cultural hub of international standing and exists in the transnational digital space. The Museum complex is divided into three venues. The Upper Belvedere houses the permanent, world-famous collection of the museum — that showcases 800 years of art history from the Middle Ages to the 1970s, including masterpieces by Klimt, Schiele, Funke, Messerschmidt, and van Gogh. The Belvedere 21, a post-war modernist pavilion hosting contemporary Austrian and international art, film, and music. And the Lower Belvedere is currently exhibiting the 300 Years a Venue of Art exhibition celebrating Belvedere’s 300th anniversary year of 2023.
The 300 Years a Venue for Art exhibition is presented as a homage to an institution dedicated to the arts throughout the centuries, casting a critical eye on historical developments and institutional changes.
The 300 Years a Venue for Art exhibition is presented as a homage to an institution dedicated to the arts throughout the centuries, casting a critical eye on historical developments and institutional changes. It illustrates the abundance and diversity of the museum, highlighting the collection’s evolution and the role of the holdings as symbols of power. Along with the exhibition, a beautiful 398-page catalog was created. The book includes contributions by well-known authors, that have been collected in this critical homage to explore common questions across epochal boundaries: What concepts of order manifest themselves in art presentations? Which mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion are recognizable? What kind of audience should it address?
The book comes in two color options: green and pink. The cover illustration depicts the three venues of the Belvedere Museum, printed in elegant gold hot foil, accompanied by a contrasting screen-printed blue title. The utilizes high-quality Munken Lynx 120 g/m² and Pergraphica Timid Grey 120 g/m². You can purchase the book online here: Belvedere Museum Vienna | The Belvedere. 300 Years of the Venue of Art and read more about the exhibition here: Belvedere Museum Wien | Das Belvedere
Images © Pascal Petignat