25.10.2012 - 24.2.2013
The Scenery Explodes
Frederick Kiesler - Architect and Visionary Theatre Designer
Throughout his life, Frederick J. Kiesler – who died in New York in 1965 – was the art scene’s insider’s tip. Today he is regarded as one of the visionary artists of the 20th century, with an assured place in the art-historical canon. Architecture, design, painting or sculpture – he worked in every genre to express his creative ideas. Less well known are his grandiose and hugely influential visions for the stage. However,
they are a leitmotif of Kiesler’s variegated work. Theatre was his most intimate creative source from which he derived inspiration for other, non-theatre projects.
The exhibition was developed by the Austrian Theatre Museum in collaboration with the Austrian Frederick and Lilian Kiesler Private Foundation; it was curated by Barbara Lesák and designed by Blaich + Delugan. The show presents the first comprehensive survey of Kiesler’s theatre-cosm, everything from his revolutionary Space Stage (Vienna 1924) to the celebrated series of Endless or Universal Theatres he realized in New York (1926–1960). In 2013 the show will transfer first to Museum Villa Stuck in Munich and then to La Casa Encendida in Madrid.
