With Gustav Klimt / Josef Hoffmann, the Belvedere pays tribute to two pioneers of Modernism in a comprehensive exhibition that simultaneously introduces the Klimt Year 2012. The painter Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) and the architect and product and interior designer Josef Hoffmann shared a common vision of an art that was meant to touch all spheres of life. Over two decades, they were joined in their artistic and social activities, even if the intensity of their collaboration varied. They frequented the same circles, worked for the same clientele, and were both leading personalities in Vienna’s newly emerging art scene.

Such outstanding projects as the Beethoven exhibition at the Vienna Secession in 1902 and the Stoclet Palace in Brussels, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, were landmarks for generations to come. Klimt and Hoffmann strove to establish a harmony between the visual and the applied arts and set new benchmarks in Europe when it comes to the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk. By means of numerous paintings, original plans, elaborate reconstructions, models, and historical documents, the show at the Belvedere illustrates the genesis and spatial impact of their joint projects and elucidates the intensive exchange with the Belgian art scene that lastingly influenced the evolution of Viennese Modernism.

The first section of the show visualizes the transition from the decorative and curvilinear style of Art Nouveau to a strictly geometric approach primarily oriented towards orthogonal structures, with the wall designs for the Paris World Fair juxtaposed with those for the Beethoven exhibition at the Vienna Secession in 1902. A true-to-detail reconstruction of the room on the left side, which accommodated Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, and a true-to-scale architectural model of the entire exhibition area illustrate Vienna’s first Gesamtkunstwerk in the Secessionist style.

The radicality of the change in style that took place in just little time will be graphically demonstrated at the Belvedere show through a comparison of the two spatial principles. Significant impulses for the development of Viennese Modernism came from such Belgian artists as George Minne and Fernand Khnopff. At no point in time has there been such a close Exchange between the Belgian and Austrian protagonists in art, architecture, and literature that could be compared to the one that took place around 1900. This circumstance is taken into account in the Belvedere show through a juxtaposition of works by Khnopff, Minne, Jan Toorop, and Klimt. 

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