MUMOK

MUMOK
Andrzej Otrębski · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	MUMOK
Native name	Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Established	1962
Location	MuseumsQuartier, Vienna
Type	Modern art museum
Collection size	ca. 10,000
Director	Jochen Volz

MUMOK is a major museum of modern and contemporary art located in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier. It houses an extensive collection of 20th- and 21st-century painting, sculpture, photography, and media art, and stages scholarly exhibitions, public programs, and international loans. The institution participates in transnational networks, acquires works by leading artists, and collaborates with museums, foundations, and universities across Europe and beyond.

History

The museum traces institutional roots to postwar collecting initiatives influenced by patrons and institutions such as Heinrich Ludwig, Peter Ludwig, Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Kunsthistorisches Museum, and Albertina. Early acquisitions reflected dialogues with artists and movements including Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Institutional milestones involved collaborations with entities such as Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Neue Galerie New York, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Serpentine Galleries, Fondazione Prada, Kunsthaus Zürich, Pinakothek der Moderne, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Hamburger Bahnhof, and Guggenheim Bilbao. Curatorial figures and directors engaged with scholarship produced by Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Vienna, Courtauld Institute of Art, and École des Beaux-Arts.

Architecture and Collections Building

The museum occupies a prominent postwar modernist and late 20th-century structure in the MuseumsQuartier near Hofburg, Museumsquartier U-Bahn station, Mariahilfer Straße, and MuseumsQuartier Wien. The building's redesign and extension were realized with input from architects and firms associated with projects like OMA, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Zaha Hadid Architects, David Chipperfield Architects, Herzog & de Meuron, Foster + Partners, Jean Nouvel, Gehry Partners, UNStudio, Sauerbruch Hutton, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Santiago Calatrava, Richard Rogers, Arata Isozaki, and Alvaro Siza Vieira. Architectural features reference exhibition precedents at Neue Nationalgalerie, Louvre Pyramid, Kunsthalle Basel, Serpentine Pavilion, and MAXXI. The collection storage, conservation laboratories, and research rooms mirror standards used at British Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Rijksmuseum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, and Victoria and Albert Museum.

Permanent Collections

The permanent holdings span movements and figures across modernism and contemporary practice, with works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Franz Marc, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Beckmann, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Cy Twombly, Brice Marden, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramović, Yves Klein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Pietro Perugino, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cindy Sherman, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Franz West, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Tacita Dean, Annie Leibovitz, Diane Arbus, August Sander, Imogen Cunningham, Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Brassaï, and André Kertész. The collection includes painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and works on paper, and it is used for rotating displays and research loans with partners like Documenta, Venice Biennale, Skulptur Projekte Münster, Manifesta, Whitney Biennial, and Art Basel.

Temporary Exhibitions and Programs

Exhibition programming has featured monographic and survey shows on figures such as Kazimir Malevich, Pablo Picasso, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Marina Abramović, Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, Ai Weiwei, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Olafur Eliasson, Cornelia Parker, Thomas Schütte, Rachel Whiteread, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Hirschhorn, Elmgreen & Dragset, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Monica Bonvicini, Hito Steyerl, Kara Walker, Mona Hatoum, Yoko Ono, Christian Boltanski, Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Germaine Richier, Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Dorothea Tanning, Paul Thek, Ad Reinhardt, Isamu Noguchi, Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Frida Kahlo. Collaborations and loans have come from collections including Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Pinacoteca di Brera, Kunstmuseum Basel, Stedelijk Museum, Centre Pompidou, Museo Reina Sofía, Museum Ludwig, Neue Galerie, National Gallery, and Fondazione Prada.

Education and Public Engagement

Educational initiatives partner with universities and schools such as University of Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Mozarteum University Salzburg, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Gymnasium Wasagasse, Wiener Zeitung workshops, and international residencies connected to European Union cultural programs, UNESCO initiatives, and networks like ICOM. Public programs include guided tours, workshops, curatorial talks, and collaborative projects with artists and institutions such as European Cultural Foundation, Goethe-Institut, British Council, Institut Français, Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Kulturstiftung des Bundes, and Künstlerhaus Wien.

Administration and Funding

Governance involves municipal and federal cultural bodies including City of Vienna, Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, and foundations like Ludwig Foundation, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Kunsthalle Wien, Albertina Museum Foundation, Raiffeisen Bank International, and corporate sponsors similar to UniCredit, Erste Group, OMV, Red Bull GmbH, and Borealis AG. The museum participates in international loan agreements and grant programs with organizations such as European Commission, Creative Europe, Getty Foundation, Kress Foundation, Soros Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and BBVA Foundation. Administrative staff coordinate acquisitions, conservation, and curatorial strategy in consultation with advisory boards including trustees from institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Tate Gallery, Fondazione Prada, Museo Reina Sofía, and Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Category:Museums in Vienna