The dark basalt edifice and sharp corners of the Museum Moderner Kunst are a complete contrast to the MuseumsQuartier’s historical sleeve. Inside, MUMOK is crawling with Vienna’s finest collection of 20th-century art, centred on fluxus, nouveau realism, pop art and photo-realism.
The best of expressionism, cubism, minimal art and Viennese Actionism is represented in a collection of 9000 works that are rotated and exhibited by theme – but take note that sometimes all this Actionism is packed away to make room for temporary exhibitions. On any visit you might glimpse: wearily slumped attendant (not part of any exhibit), photos of horribly deformed babies, a video piece of a man being led by a beautiful woman across a pedestrian crossing on a dog leash, naked bodies smeared with salad and other delights, a man parting his own buttocks, flagellation in a lecture hall, and an ultra close-up of a urinating penis. The heavy stuff comes later. Other well-known artists represented throughout the museum – Picasso, Paul Klee, René Magritte, Max Ernst and Alberto Giacometti – are positively tame in comparison.
