There is a place in Vienna that often goes unnoticed by those who visit it for the first time. Opposite the impressive St. Stephen’s Cathedral is a small museum gem, the Dom Museum, a 19th-century building rehabilitated to simultaneously house the historical treasures of the cathedral and the archdiocese of Vienna, and the avant-garde collection of Otto Mauer. .
Mauer was the priest of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the 1950s, a speaker and lover of abstract art, founded the St. Stephan Gallery and promoted young avant-garde artists. He died in 1973 and his collection passed into the hands of the Dom museum in 1980. Since then it has been continually expanded and currently has more than 3,000 works. In addition, annually you can see special exhibitions that deal with current issues related to society, religion and art. The last one is dedicated to death, Sterblich sein (Being mortal), and can be seen until August 2024.
A journey that takes the visitor to delve deeper into death as part of life, both individually and collectively, with works that range from the Middle Ages to the present day but without entering into tearful but shocking images in an attempt to make us reflect. about the ephemerality of the human being. And although many of the historical objects in the cathedral have to do with death, it is interesting to see how artists from the early 20th century explore human emotions through death.
The tour begins through the spiral staircase that gives access to the first floor from where you can see a curtain made of threads, at the end of which hang hand-woven labels with the names of all those who died in 2022 in Vienna without anyone attending his funeral. In total there are 200 people. A reminder of the loneliness we face in our days. Silent departure is the name of this work by Sybille Loew.
Among the works you can admire a photograph by Timm Ulrichs, where you can see the word The end on a human eyelid, it is that of the artist himself who tattooed it in 1981, as if it were the final credits of a film that he hopes will be appear when you close your eyes for the last time. The artist is still alive today.
Also on display are some watercolors by the Austrian artist Günter Brus who died in February 2024. At the age of 85, during the pandemic he returned to painting, something he had not done for a long time, and made a series of watercolors, all of them related to death. The so-called Young Death serves as the central image of the exhibition poster.
We continue the tour with Flying Blind, a four-meter aluminum skeleton, the work of Manfred Erjautz, which flies over our heads while covering its eyes. And among a series of photographs by Khaled Barakeh showing the pain caused by the death of loved ones in armed conflicts, the author hides the deceased behind white paint, making them disappear before our eyes. Here you will also find a petition against the death of the French artist Orlan who refuses to die, a poster to take home.
The counterpoint is found in The Descent from the Cross, a wooden carving by Giovanni Giuliani from 1730 on loan from the Cistercian abbey of Heiligenkreuz where no one could admire it. It is very realistic, no one would say that it is from the 18th century, and in the same room a figure that almost seems real, only its dimensions, a little smaller than usual, tell us that it is not a real human being, a sculpture by Australian Sam Jinks that reminds us of a piety made with silicone. Still Life, in which a young man holds in his arms a naked old man who could very well be his father.
But a young Ukrainian artist, Olia Fedorova, stands out for her proximity in time with her Prayers of Anger. At the beginning of the Ukrainian war, she was in the basement of her house in kyiv, and she had no materials to work with, only an old sheet that she used as a canvas. She was evacuated and is now living in Austria.
The exhibition is extensive and enjoyable so it is worth spending your well-deserved time on it.
