To mark its opening, Phoenix des Lumières presents an immersive exhibition devoted to the main figures in the Viennese art scene, of which Gustav Klimt was a key figure.

In late nineteenth century Imperial Vienna, Gustav Klimt was one of the principal decorative painters of the sumptuous monuments on the Ringstrasse. At the dawn of the new century, he led the Vienna Secession, a movement that sought to break away from academic art. Both famous and contested, Klimt paved the way to modern painting. The gold and decorative patterns that characterise his works are a symbol of this artistic revolution.

The immersive exhibition includes the works that characterise Klimt’s work and made him so famous—his ‘golden phase’, portraits, and landscapes. The immersive exhibition also presents works by major Viennese artists such as Egon Schiele and Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who were influenced by Klimt’s work. Inspired by the artistic effervescence of the end of the nineteenth century, Schiele advocated a new form of representing landscapes and the human body. Hundertwasser infused his architectural structures and paintings with a symbolic dimension.

Produced by Culturespaces and created by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto and Massimiliano Siccardi, this inaugural artistic programme invites visitors to immerse themselves in the colourful and luminous works of Gustav Klimt, works by his contemporaries, and those whom he inspired. Taking visitors on a journey through one hundred years of Viennese painting, the immersive exhibition takes an original look at the works of Klimt and his successors through a presentation of the portraits, landscapes, nudes, colours, and gilding that revolutionised Viennese painting at the end of the nineteenth century and in the century that followed. The exhibition whisks the public back in time to explore the artwork of the Vienna Secession.

Listen to the playlist of the exhibition