Review: Friedrich Kiesler: Lebenswelten/Life Visions

Abstract

Friedrich Kiesler: Lebenswelten/Life Visions Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art (MAK), Vienna 15 June–2 October 2016 This exhibition focusing on the Austrian American Friedrich (Frederick) Kiesler (1890–1965) was the latest in a series at the MAK devoted to protagonists of the Wiener Moderne ; it followed exhibitions on Josef Frank and on the relationship between Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos.1 Kiesler has become a familiar figure in the Viennese museum scene. In 1997 his estate was purchased by the Austrian state and the city of Vienna. The same year saw the establishment of the Austrian Friedrich and Lilian Kiesler Foundation, which has since undertaken exemplary research, resulting in exhibitions and a growing awareness of Kiesler's relevance to contemporary discourse. The last significant exhibition, The Scenery Explodes—Frederick Kiesler, Architect and Visionary Theater Designer , was mounted by the Austrian Theater Museum in 2012–13.2 In 2015, Birkhauser published Endless Kiesler , a comprehensive account of Kiesler's spatial innovations.3 Thanks to the foundation's efforts, Kiesler is now one of the best-known figures of Viennese modernism. The curators of the exhibition at the MAK, Dieter Bogner, Maria Lind, and Barbel Vischer, set themselves the challenge of developing a new approach to Kiesler's career. Using a transdisciplinary methodology, they made Kiesler's transgression of boundaries their focus. Specifically, they stressed the interaction Kiesler achieved between aesthetic and empirical-scientific practices and their reflection of the environment and lifeworld ( Lebenswelt ). The Lebenswelten of the exhibition title …