Arts and Letters

I remember once, during a several-hour transit wait, walking up and down the long anonymous concrete and glass halls of the main terminal at the Frankfurt airport. Since there was nothing else to do, I watched the people who were waiting in the empty concourse.

I was suprised at how suddenly the fog formed around MuseumsQuartier as I continued to Halle 1 of the Kunsthalle Wien. Even though it was a damp and chilly afternoon, my coat was far too warm for the weather. I walked more brisky, eager to take off my thick coat deep within Halle 1 in the MQ courtyards.

The advertising for both ballet productions was surprisingly similar: A beautiful woman in a stark pose. In Vienna, Georgian dancer Ketevan Papava holds a fan high in the air, as her red lace dress slips off her left shoulder as Carmen. In Bratislava, a mystic woman surrounded by emerald demons glares out at the world from the peaks of Mount Everest. One would not think this poster was for a home-grown production.

It’s a desperate time for Europe’s smokers. All the decadent societies of legend – Italy, France, Spain, as well as the UK, Germany and the Netherlands – have joined the ranks of the European Union-wide smoking ban, which applies to all restaurants, cafes and bars, and sends legions of frantic smokers out onto windblown balconies and huddled in doorways.

Autumn leaves lie scattered across the narrow and dismal alleys. Misty cold air rubs against the skin. As nature slowly prepares to take its winter sleep, thriving galleries exhibit their riches. Lush, radiant artifacts of pomp glitter on gallery walls, rekindling our spirit.

Antal, Pasqualini, Winkler

At first glance photographer Thomas Demand´s subject seems to be all too familiar. There are five different views of the Oval Office of the American President in his current exhibition at the Mumok Factory. The identification of this location happens of course in a split second.

No one walking into Oslo’s Munchmusset can forget the impression of seeing Edvard Munch’s signature tableau, The Scream, displayed as you first enter the museum. The famous contorted face of Angst and Weltschmerz on a bridge of oblivious passers-by is what you came to see.

The rest of the museum endeavors to show the man behind the scream.

Up the steps of the glistening, minimalist Essl Museum, a life-size reclining elephant in stone fills the space. Overhead, a giant spiral of confetti-like colored dots, a chain of the bindi marks Indian woman wear on their foreheads. A flurry of color, the colossal pachyderm by artist Bharti Kher sets the tone for Chalo!

If nothing else, the season opening at Tanzquartier was extremely ambitious. Ten different performance venues at the TQW Studios, Halle G, Jungl, museumsquartier21, and finally the courtyard of MQ. Erste Tanznacht Wien was the official coming-out of the new Tanzquartier director Walter Heun, former artistic director of Tanztendenz München (1987 to 1993) and Luzerntanz (1999 to 2004) and current artistic director of Dance Platform Germany (1994 to present).

A seductive serpent looms – jet black eye against glistening white skin – at the centre of the text on the poster announcing Vienna’s largest festival of art, the Vienna Art Week, a largely private initiative, which will be making its fifth year anniversary this 16-22 November.