William Kentridge – Five Themes
Albertina, Vienna, 29 October 2010 – 30 January 2011

Feketedoboz (színház rajzokkal), 2005

William Kentridge: Five Themes, a comprehensive survey of the contemporary South African artist’s work, opened at the Albertina October 29th, 2010. Featuring more than 60 works in a range of media – including animated films, drawings, prints, theater models, sculptures, and books – the exhibition is co-organized by SFMOMA and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition explores five primary themes that have engaged Kentridge over the past three decades.
Although the exhibition highlights projects completed since 2000, it will also present, for the first time, Kentridge’s most recent work alongside his earlier projects from the 1980s and 1990s – revealing as never before the full arc of his distinguished career.

Picasso: Peace and Freedom
Albertina, Vienna, 22 September 2010 – 16 January 2011

In 1944, Picasso became a member of the French Communist Party, whose figurehead he remained until the end of his life. Yet his political thinking was entirely molded by his desire for peace and freedom. During those years, he painted, drew, and lithographed his famous image of the white dove, which turned into a global symbol of freedom and a human society that did not only look back on two World Wars, but was also confronted with such imminent catastrophes as the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Fifty paintings and one hundred drawings, as well as numerous historical documents highlight Picasso as a political figure and thus present a hitherto neglected, but nevertheless crucial chapter in the life of this exceptional artist.

Michelangelo – The Drawings of a Genius
Albertina, Vienna, 8 October 2010 – 9 January 2011

In a major exhibition scheduled for autumn and winter 2010, the Albertina presented around one hundred of the most beautiful drawings by Michelangelo. Precious works from the Graphic Arts Collection of the Albertina, as well as important loans from museums and private collections in Europe and the United States, will offer a hitherto unparalleled overview of the great Florentine’s entire oeuvre.
The focus is on the figural drawings by Michelangelo, who will be introduced here as the genius of a period of change, with his versatile talents as a draftsman, painter, architect, and sculptor.
The show traces Michelangelo’s career from the artist’s juvenile works and designs for The Battle of Cascina to the world-famous frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, the ingenious drawings he presented to Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, and the Crucifixion scenes dating from the artist’s late period, when he was almost eighty years old. At the same time, new clues as to the dating of individual works will be provided. Projections of the monumental ceiling frescoes, the incorporation of plaster casts of Michelangelo’s sculptures, as well as paintings by other artists based on the master’s designs are meant to illustrate the dimensions and impact of his art. New paths of didactic presentation will be forged through a documentation of contemporary history and the artist’s environment.