Design of the exhibition in the Lower Belvedere

Wolfgang Paalen was the only Austrian artist in the circle of the Paris Surrealists. As a cosmopolitan, mastermind, writer and important source of inspiration, he also established himself as a key figure in the art of the 20th century. The Belvedere dedicated a long overdue museum reappraisal to his oeuvre and work in 2019.Born in Vienna in 1905, Wolfgang Paalen significantly shaped European and U.S. art from the 1930s to the 1950s through his works and his publications. Nevertheless, his paintings and sculptures are hardly known to a broad public today.

The exhibition "Wolfgang Paalen (1905-1959) - The Austrian Surrealist in Paris and Mexico" illuminated Paalen's creative work from his beginnings as a Surrealist artist to his writing activities: his early international fame as a painter in the circle of the Paris Surrealists, his move to Mexico at the invitation of Frida Kahlo, and his importance as editor of the influential art journal DYN.

The first comprehensive solo exhibition on Wolfgang Paalen at the Lower Belvedere showed loans from all over the world, from renowned institutions as well as from private collections. It presented a group of Fumage and Spaciales paintings never before shown on this scale, supplemented by numerous biographical photographs, letters, and comprehensive documentation of the magazine DYN. Paalen's longtime collecting and research of indigenous art of British Columbia and Mexico, as well as his literary work, which includes poetry, short stories, plays, and art theory texts, also appeared in the exhibition as aspects of his complex work.

CURATOR Andreas Neufert and Franz Smola
EXHIBTION ARCHITECTURE Margula Architects
TEAM Itai Margula, Alex Schertler and Jane Zandonai
LOCATION Unteres Belvedere
DURATION of the Exhibition 4. Oktober 2019 till 19. Januar 2020
FOTO Belvedere/Johannes Stoll