FOREIGN GODS
Fascination Africa and Oceania

23.09.2016 - 09.01.2017

In the Leopold Museum’s large-scale autumn exhibition the museum’s comprehensive collection of African and Oceanic art is presented for the first time. Allowing these objects to enter into a dialogue with select works by protagonists of Classical Modernism, the presentation calls to mind Europe’s exotic art adventure and its impact on the avant-garde. For the fascination held by art from “foreign” cultures is reflected in numerous works of Classical Modernism and the museum’s founder Rudolf Leopold shared the enthusiasm that exponents of this movement had for such objects. Visitors are able to experience this first hand through the dialogue that the masks and figures enter into with works by Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brâncuși, Emil Nolde and Max Ernst. At the same time, the alienating, “primitivist” view that Modernist artists had of Africa and Oceania is questioned by the contemporary artist Kader Attia from a post-colonial perspective.

Curators: Erwin Melchardt, Ivan Ristić

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