Ouverture
In the entrance area to the Fantastic Surrealists exhibition it is very clear that these artworks will not be presented on white walls with maximum neutrality, but that the exhibition design makes a striking use of bright color and construction elements. Alongside The Magic Flute cycle (1970−1974) by Wolfgang Hutter, this first gallery also presents the film documentation The Vienna School of Fantastic Realists (1967), which features the main protagonists of the movement (Helmut Leherb, Rudolf Hausner, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden, Ernst Fuchs, and Arik Brauer) and their works. The film presents each of these painters with several works and shows the differences between them. It takes its own playful and fantastic approach and is entertaining and humorous.
The first work in the exhibition consists of eight sheets from Wolfgang Hutter’s The Magic Flute cycle, shown on a large table. Hutter is one of the major representatives of the Vienna school of Fantastic Realism. In 1970, he was first commissioned to design a stage set for Mozart’s Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) for the Opera Graz. In two acts with fourteen scenes, the opera tells a story that balances at the borders between illusion, the fantastic, and realism, with the characters engaged in an eventful and confusing search for truth and its manifestations and hidden depths. The young Prince Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue Princess Pamina, who has been abducted by Duke Sarastro. The bird catcher Papageno is to assist Tamino in his task. Good and evil become confused, and hitherto reliable appearances and arrangements are seen in a new light. Hutter’s interpretation of the curtain and the stage space is based primarily on the depiction of various forms of vegetation and different kinds of building. As Hutter’s subjects in his painting consist mainly of landscapes, this commission seemed perfect for him, but his first designs for Opera Graz in1970 were not used, as just two of them would have required the entire design budget. For a short while, therefore, these drawings were not made public, before Hutter published them in 1974 as a portfolio.
Compositions featuring stages are seen in many works throughout this exhibition, either in direct or indirect form. The idea of a stage was also used in the exhibition design. With its red carpet, differently colored walls, and the continuous curtain, the whole space looks like a theater or cinema and has an immersive effect on visitors. Games with illusions and the machinery of the imagination are almost as old as art itself. A good example is the dispute between Zeuxis and Parrhasius, as described by Pliny the Elder: “Zeuxis painted some grapes so perfectly luscious and inviting that a flock of birds flew in to pick them and ended up pecking at their image instead. The following day, Parrhasius invited Zeuxis to his studio, where Parrhasius led his rival to his painting concealed by a curtain. Zeuxis was asked to draw the curtain aside to gaze on his opponent’s masterpiece. As he reached for it, Zeuxis realized that the curtain was not a real curtain, but in fact a realistic rendering of one. Zeuxis conceded defeat, for while he was only able to deceive the birds, while Parrhasius had deceived the keen eyes of an artist.”1 Games with stages, the actual and the artificial, and the real and the performed have been key elements in art since Pliny’s days, and are found in manifold ways as a meta-narrative, be this in the work of Francisco de Goya or Rene Magritte. It is not at all a question of chance, for example, that in David Lynch’s iconic series Twin Peaks there is a room with red curtains in which anything seems to be possible. Both time and actions taken from the real world have only limited effect here. This room operates according to its own rules, and is thus a fascinating metaphor not merely for the power of cinema but also for art in general. By being presented like a performance, this exhibition wishes to be part of this tradition, while thereby also underscoring the universal relevance of the art on show.
1. Plinius, Naturalis Historia, Kapitel 35/ Vers 64.
Wolfgang Hutter
The Stage Curtain, 1974
Pamina’s Prison, 1970
Papageno’s Forest, 1970
The Temple Grove Forest, 1974
The Temple Grove, 1974
The Temple Grove at Night, 1974
Pamina’s Rose Bed, 1970
The Fire Tower and the Water Tower, 1970
All works:
From the cycle The Magic Flute
Screen print, 50 × 60 cm
Rahmenmaße / Frame: 60 × 67 cm
Courtesy Neue Galerie Graz am Universalmuseum Joanneum, Collection Suschnigg gift
The Vienna School of Fantastic Realists, 1967
26:42 min.
Color, 16mm, optical sound
Idea: Willi Liwanec
Screenplay, design: Karl Bednarik
Courtesy WSTLA, Filmarchiv media wien, 261