mumok

The mumok collection contains nearly five hundred works related to animals—a considerable quantity that raises the question of what kind of zoo the museum in fact is. What is kept, researched, and displayed both here and there to protect “wild life” and the “freedom of art”? And in whose interest?

The Animal Within addresses such questions and uses the popular appeal of animals to reflect on the nature of sex, hunger, and affection, as well as on family and gender relations, socialization and domestication, and, not least, on the enduring impact of colonial history. Who leads whom on a leash? Who clips whose wings? Who scratches whose back?

The exhibition is thus less about animals than about bodies, moving or still, reclining or standing, crouching or crawling. The animal as a motif serves as a starting point to get to a materialist understanding of art and life. For in the Western world, “taming and framing” is what we do to mark our territories and claim our subjectivities.

Artists: Hildegard Absalon, Friedrich Achleitner, Hans Arp, Christian Ludwig Attersee, Josef Bachler, Georg Baselitz, Lothar Baumgarten, Herbert Bayer, André Beaudin, Renate Bertlmann, Joseph Beuys, Linda Bilda, Günter Brus, Werner Büttner, Cagnaccio di San Pietro, Helen Chadwick, Linda Christanell, Clegg & Guttmann, Bruce Conner, Frank João da Costa, Wessel Couzijn, Walter Dahn, Friedl Dicker, Erik Dietman, Anton Dobay, Stefan Eins, Elisabeth Ernst, VALIE EXPORT, Öyvind Fahlström, Alois Fischbach, Johann Fischer, Heinz Frank, Gloria Friedmann, Adam Fuss, Valeriy Gerlovin, Rimma Gerlovina, Jochen Gerz, Bruno Gironcoli, Johann Gittenberger, Franz Graf, Nancy Graves, Al Hansen, Johann Hauser, Karel Havliček, Jann Haworth, Candida Höfer, Ull Hohn, Jörg Immendorff, Johannes Itten, Robert Jacobsen, Ben Jakober, Anna Jermolaewa, Isolde Maria Joham, Ray Johnson, Joe Jones, Birgit Jürgenssen, Béla Kádár, Richard Kalina, Franz Kamlander, Gudrun Kampl, Gülsün Karamustafa, Mike Kelley, Franz Kernbeis, Erika Giovanna Klien, Alfred Klinkan, Dominique Knowles, Kiki Kogelnik, Peter Kogler, Fritz Koller, Broncia Koller-Pinell, Brigitte Kowanz, Kurt Kren, Tetsumi Kudo, Wifredo Lam, Maria Lassnig, Madame d'Ora, Dušan Makavejev, André Masson, Paul McCarthy, Missing Link (Angela Hareiter, Otto Kapfinger, Adolf Krischanitz), Alois Mosbacher, Michaela Moscouw, Koloman Moser, Otto Muehl, László Mulasics, Ulrike Müller, Bruce Nauman, Elly Niebuhr, Hermann Nitsch, Oswald Oberhuber, Julian Opie, Fritz Opitz, Frida Orupabo, Nam June Paik, Margit Palme, Gina Pane, Pino Pascali, A.R. Penck,
Phillippe Perrin, Marcel Pouget, Herman Prigann, Otto Prinz, Eileen Quinlan, Mel Ramos, Stephan Reusse, Germaine Richier, Erika Rössing, Dieter Roth, Susan Rothenberg, Gerhard Rühm, Erica Rutherford, Branko Ružić, Niki de Saint Phalle, Lucas Samaras, Chéri Samba, Rudolf Schlichter, Kurt Schlögl, Carolee Schneemann, Philipp Schöpke, Bernard Schultze, Franz Sedlacek, Zbynĕk Sekal, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Franz Singer, Christian Skrein, Berty Skuber, Ned Smyth, Anne Speier, Margherita Spiluttini, Daniel Spoerri, Curt Stenvert, Leopold Stolba, Kamen Stoyanov, Ingeborg Strobl, Kurt Talos, Josef Till, Ursula, Maja Vukoje, Max Weiler, Lois Weinberger, Susanne Wenger, Wiener Gruppe (Friedrich Achleitner, Konrad Bayer, Gerhard Rühm, Oswald Wiener), Siegfried Zaworka, Erich Zittra, Heimo Zobernig

Curated by Manuela Ammer and Ulrike Müller