WHAT IS THERE
TO SEE?

Since 24 November 2023 and until 25 August 2024, the Heidi Horten Collection has been presenting an exhibition entitled “We❤️” that makes our museos hearts beat faster! We couldn’t stop being amazed…

The Heidi Horten Collection is located in a 100-year-old Viennese building, a former law firm office, just round the corner from the Albertina. Probably no office worker would ever have thought that the rooms would be so light-flooded and modern 🙂 !

Thanks to its size and openness, the bright exhibition hall creates an innovative ambience and an elegant atmosphere.

Thematically, the exhibition is divided into three main areas: paintings of the expressionism and from the 1960s and 1970s and sculpture. The list of artists and artworks worth mentioning is long, probably too long for this blog post. Nevertheless, we would like to tell you about a few selected highlights. Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz and Jean-Michel Basquiat… Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso… Lucio Fontana, Roy Lichtenstein… Who should we start with?
Let’s do it in order. Just as you can see them in the building.

In the atrium (ground floor) we come across Georg Baselitz, unmistakable with his upside-down motifs. He turns the world upside down, which can lead to some interesting poses when looking at the picture. The painting “Triangle between arm and torso” usually attracts attention immediately.

But opposite it hangs Andy Warhol‘s “Mickey Mouse”. So where should we look first? We decide in favour of neither of them, but the one in between, the “Love Love Love” butterflies by Damien Hirst. What at first seems like a loving depiction of life turns out to be rather macabre on closer inspection – they are real butterflies! But rest assured – only already dead insects were used for the artwork. 😅 Phew!

By the way: On the ground floor, you’ll even come across art in the toilet, namely a mirror work by Andreas Duscha. So take a toilet break before going upstairs. 🙂

A spectacular staircase leads up to the first floor. There, for example, we come across the “Concetto Spaziale” by Lucio Fontana. He transforms a two-dimensional picture into a three-dimensional relief with just five knife cuts and opens up a space that would otherwise remain hidden to us. Fontana dares to do something new. After all, a change of perspective in painting is actually created with light and dark colours, not with holes.

In the first plateau, we can also admire the unadulterated blue colour of Yves Klein (RE1). The French painter and sculptor is enthusiastic about the blue colour and sees it as the colour of infinity. His blue sponge painting radiates harmony and tranquillity, although the surface is anything but calm.

I must confess that I would have liked to touch the painting, I wanted to touch it, I was so magically drawn to it. But the alarm was triggered by the mere fact that I approached it with my head because I wanted to look at it up close … oops 😉

In an extra room, we meet René Magritte “In the Realm of Lights”. Magritte’s style is surreal, paradoxical, and irrational. He creates images between dream and reality, in the interplay of day and night. This “non-normal”, “unfamiliar” fascinates because it confuses. It breaks through our thought patterns and expectations.
It’s a good thing there’s a bench here so that we can let this surrealism take effect in peace.

On the second floor, we witness how artists enter into dialogue. This is clearly visible in “Forest Scene” by Roy Lichtenstein, who reinterprets “Red Deer I” by Franz Marc with his dots, stripes and coloured areas. The works hang side by side and create a great field of tension between the different art techniques. Regardless of whether we come from the left or walk straight towards it from the lift, the combination of images is hugely impressive from every perspective!

In a small room (also on the 2nd floor), Gustav Klimt‘s “Church in Unterach am Attersee” is presented in a special light. This world-famous work is juxtaposed with other artistic works from Vienna around 1900. A very interesting insight into history!

That was just a small excerpt, there is much more to see!

A bit of history
About Heidi Horten

Heidi Horten (1941 – 2022) was an Austrian billionaire who is best known for her collection of contemporary art. Even as a child, art was an everyday thing for her.

Her husband was Helmut Horten, the so-called “department stores’ king” – because who hasn’t heard of the Horten department stores? He was one of the wealthiest men in Germany at the time and Heidi inherited all his wealth after his death in 1987. And Heidi invested this wealth in art, among other things.

Thanks to her passion for art, we now have an impressive collection of modern and contemporary artworks: paintings, sculptures and installations. The great thing is that she has not kept her love of art to herself, she has shown it publicly by supporting various projects and donating to museums and charitable organisations.

And although she was (or is) so important in the art scene, Goëss-Horten (she remarried) rarely gave interviews and generally stayed in the background. Well, why not? After all, we all have the right to privacy 😉