„Sonderfall“ Angewandte [The Angewandte: ‘An Exceptional Case’]
Spotlight – a Remembrance Initiative

Location
Schaukasten [Showcase] Collection and Archive
Foyer Angewandte, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, 1030 Vienna

Program
March–April 2023
Margarete Berger-Hamerschlag (Vienna 1902–1958 London)
Der Spiegel [The Mirror] , 1932
Woodcut series, IN 12.165/2, 4, 5, 8, 11

May–June 2023
Hans Felix Kraus (Vienna 1916–1973 Guadalajara, Mexico)
Tartarin de Tarascon, 1933/34
Watercolours/paper, The Jewish Museum, New York,
with the kind permission of Helen Kraus

July–August 2023
Fritz Janeba (Vienna 1905–1983 Vienna)
Krieg I, II und III [War I, II and III] 1941
Aquarelle/board, IN 4454/1–3

Concept: Bernadette Reinhold, Christina Wieder, Design and Organisation: Robert Müller, Laura Egger-Karlegger

Through its exhibitions, the Angewandte dedicated itself to the study of art and cultural policy under National Socialism in Austria comparatively early. In the 1980s, before the future president Kurt Waldheim’s membership of the SA (Sturmabteilung, armed and uniformed branch of the Nazi party) had sparked a fierce debate about political responsibility and the Austrian historical narrative, the University called into question its own role in National Socialism, as well as the role of art in fascist regimes. 

The collection focuses specifically on the works of largely forgotten artists and rediscovers important facets of Austria’s own long-buried Modernism. The research project „Sonderfall“ Angewandte [The Angewandte: ‘An Exceptional Case’.] The University of Applied Arts Vienna under Austrofascism, National Socialism and during the Post-war period grapples with this once more on a deeper level and from multiple perspectives. The National Socialist cultural policy goal of eradication had an enduring effect: The life and works of many artists connected with the Angewandte are still largely unknown. Within the framework of a remembrance initiative the works of three artists who studied or taught at the Angewandte and who were forced to leave Austria by 1938 due to increasing antisemitic attacks and political persecution are exhibited in the Schaukasten [Showcase] of the Collection and Archive. Today Margarete Berger-Hamerschlag, Hans Felix Kraus and Fritz Janeba are little-known artists, only familiar to experts in this field.

The works on display address the political events of the time through dramatic or lyrical imagery, with both clear, irritatingly vague or cynical political statements and seemingly escapist scenes from fairy tales. They provide an insight into the political issues, fears and hopes of the time and demand that we never forget the past and accept responsibility in the present.