At the weekend I was in Linz and went to Lentos for The Best of Austria and Linz Blick. I don’t know why but Lentos consistently fails to impress me. Linz Blick – the idea was interesting – have a map of the city and the images exhibited (paintings, drawings, photos, etc.) represented parts of the city and these parts were marked on the map. But if you did not know where the Urfahraner church is, for example, or where Nike used to hang, you would not know how to connect the map and the pictures. Anyhow. There was a Kokoschka there as well. One Chmel (which I like very much). A Duntzendorfer (rather nice). Prachensky, Laske, Koko. But again, just one each. And, you guessed it, not the best.
Which brings me to the next exhibition – The Best of Austria. The idea is, again, interesting – that every museum in Austria should give their best for this exhibition (which is a mark of the whole European capital of culture thingy in 2009). The trouble is, by far, whatever is crammed in that little space, is not the best of Austria. “The almost not very bad” would have been a much proper title. One Schiele (Heinrich und Otto Benesch) – which is a good painting (and important for Schiele as well). A nice Johann Baptist Reiter – Die Nudelesserin. A couple of funny things – Maurizio Cattelan’s Richard I and Deborah Sengls’ The Lioness. A couple of Wurm photos. A (tiny) bit of Baroque and that’s pretty much it! In a room, an Olafur Eliasson was ‘Out of Order’ (used to be an installation; now it just occupies space)…
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