Thursday 26 June 2008, 18.00–19.30

Turn of the century Austrian salons consisted of a small gathering of people, brought together by an inspiring host or hostess to increase knowledge on a particular subject through conversational exchange and reading, but also to provide amusement. Tate Liverpool’s series of salons linked to Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna, 1900 look at the interdisciplinary links in Klimt’s life and work. Each session is moderated by experts in the field, who start by giving an illustrated presentation on a given theme, followed by an open discussion.

Curator of an exhibition that will look at the ‘Vienna Five’ (Kraus, Loos, Schönberg, Kokoschka and Altenberg) in 2010 and author of ‘Adolf Loos: Works and Projects’, Ralf Bock leads the first salon, in a talk entitled Between Ornament and Crime: Loos V Hoffmann. Josef Hoffmann, working closely with Klimt, founded the Viennese Secession and later the Wiener Werkstätte, based on philosophical ideas of the total work of art and the integration of art and design. A group made up of Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos and Arnold Schönberg founded another opposing movement, with the ambition of championing the strict separation of art and design, leading to radical new forms in each discipline. Ralf Bock discusses the two opposing movements in Vienna at the turn of the last century that challenged each other to overtake the historicism of previous years and achieve the status of the new modern movement. 

Tate Liverpool  The Auditorium
£7 (£5.50 concessions), booking required
£4 members, Includes entry to the Gustav Klimt Exhibition.

    

This event is related to the Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900 exhibition