“The Aesthetics of Evil” is the new exhibition at the Albertina Modern in Vienna, dedicated to Alfred Kubin (1877-1959). From August 14, 2024, to January 12, 2025, around 100 works by the Austrian artist, one of the most profound and unsettling of the 20th century, will be on display. Kubin portrays death, fear, and the darkest shadows of human existence without censorship, and these themes are presented in evocatively titled sections: “Condemned to Death from Birth,” “Nightmares of Darkness,” and “Grotesques and Monstrosities.”
Alfred Kubin, The Egg, ca. 1901/02, 16×24 cm, The ALBERTINA MUSEUM, Vienna © Eberhard Spangenberg, München / Bildrecht, Vienna 2024
Kubin was a versatile artist, transitioning from illustration to painting to writing. He is well-known for his novel “The Other Side,” published in 1909 and accompanied by 52 illustrations. His entire career was deeply influenced by his personal experiences of suffering and anguish.
The death of his mother, constant conflicts with his father, family difficulties, and a suicide attempt at the age of twenty profoundly marked his reflection and artistic production. His drawings reveal themes such as alienation, fear of sexuality, and a bleak and disillusioned worldview.
The exhibition focuses on works created between 1899 and 1904. These few years were crucial in the formation of Kubin’s visual language and, at the same time, a period of great transformation for the entire world. The new world, the 20th century, was emerging on the scene of old Europe and aristocratic Austro-Hungarian Empire with all its social and personal anxieties. These were also the years when psychoanalysis was being born in Dr. Freud’s Viennese office.
Curator Elisabeth Dutz and her assistant Laura Luzianovich, selecting from the over 1,800 drawings preserved at the Albertina, show us the evil that Kubin seeks and finds in the depths of the human soul, both in personal and individual aspects as well as in a broader critique of modern society.
Kubin’s terrible personal experiences thus become a universal representation of evil and suffering, an exploration of the darkest recesses of the human psyche. His work remains a powerful and relevant testimony to the fears and obsessions that continue to haunt humanity.
The exhibition “Die Ästhetik des Bösen” is not only a tribute to a great artist but also an experience that challenges the viewer to confront their own fears and the reality of evil, which, as Kubin reminds us, is always present, lurking just beyond the veil of the everyday.
Die Ästhetik des Bösen (The Aesthetics of Evil)
Albertina Modern, Vienna
14.08.2024 – 12.01.2025
more: www.albertina.at
