Kunsthaus Bregenz

Kunsthaus Bregenz

The Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) presents temporary exhibitions of international contemporary art in Bregenz, capital of the Austrian Federal State of Vorarlberg. Commissioned by the State of Vorarlberg and designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, it was built between 1990 and 1997.

Exhibitions

The Kunsthaus Bregenz is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art both architecturally and in terms of its program. The KUB Arena located on the ground floor, along with three vertical floors, offers 1,880 m² of exhibition space. The Kunsthaus exhibits works by international contemporary artists who generally create art work specifically for the Kunsthaus. The KUB also has its own collection with two core areas: “Archive Art Architecture” and “Contemporary Austrian Art.” Select works of exhibiting artists have been expanding the latter part of the collection since 2009.

The KUB not only addresses international concerns with its exhibitions and projects, but also helps shape the cultural identity of Vorarlberg with regional projects. Noteworthy examples are Gottfried Bechtold’s “Signatur 02” at the Silvretta dam, the American artist Jenny Holzer’s “Truth Before Power” (2004), involving the projection of large-format texts onto architectural and natural monuments in Vorarlberg, or, from August 2010 through April 2012, the British sculptor Antony Gormley’s landscape project “Horizon Field.”

Apart from extensive and prestigious shows in its main exhibition spaces, the KUB also runs projects with a processual and interdisciplinary bias in the KUB Arena. Conceived as a discursive interface between architecture and work, this art and art educational platform is located on the ground floor of the Kunsthaus.

Alongside its exhibitions, the Kunsthaus offers an extensive educational program. The Kunsthaus Bregenz publishes work-relevant books, collections of essays, and catalogues, often in close collaboration with exhibiting artists and designers such as Walter Nikkels or Stefan Sagmeister. Exclusive special editions for the Kunsthaus Bregenz are an outcome of the close collaboration between artists and their exhibition production.

History

The KUB opened in July 1997 with an exhibition by the American artist James Turrell. Edelbert Köb, founding director of the Kunsthaus Bregenz, was succeeded by Eckhard Schneider (2000–2008); Yilmaz Dziewior has been Kunsthaus Director since October 1, 2009.

Architecture

The art museum stands in the light of Lake Constance. It is made of glass and steel and a cast concrete stone mass which endows the interior of the building with texture and spatial composition. From the outside, the building looks like a lamp. It absorbs the changing light of the sky, the haze of the lake, it reflects light and color and gives an intimation of its inner life according to the angle of vision, the daylight, and the weather.

— Peter Zumthor,

Majestically impervious to the external gaze, the glass-sheathed cube standing on the shore of Lake Constance has been an aesthetic presence in Vorarlberg for ten years.

— – Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 3, 2007

The Kunsthaus Bregenz was designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, and winner of the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture in 1998. The KUB has since received numerous distinctions for its method of construction. One of the major modern art galleries worldwide, it is a fine example of architectural minimalism. Distinguished by its imposing external form and unwavering spatial concept, the building was conceived as a daylight museum. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s design, in his own words, aimed at fulfilling an art gallery’s chief function: to be a place for art and a place where people can peacefully encounter art. For artists exhibiting at the KUB, the architecture is a measure and conceptual stimulus for their projects, especially when entire new series of works are being produced. The architecture is an indispensable platform for the KUB’s international exhibition program.

Location

The KUB is a prominent solitary construction in downtown Bregenz near the vorarlberg museum and Vorarlberger Landestheater and not far from the lakefront. Together with the Landestheater it frames an open square between the old town and the lake.

Façade

The façade consists of 712 finely etched equally sized glass panels weighng some 250 kg each, secured by clips to a steel framework. These panels form a free-standing, light-diffusing skin, independent of the actual building, that serves to initially refract the incident daylight and conduct it to the light ceilings in the exhibition halls. At dark, the artificial lighting from the interior shines through inner light bands and outer skin to show the building’s interior life. The gap between light skin and building accommodates servicing equipment. Artists exhibiting at the KUB have sometimes made use of the façade in their installations.

Interior

Materials distinguish the interior, with exposed unpainted concrete visibly dominating. The floors and stairways are of polished terrazzo, the walls and ceilings of exposed unpolished concrete. The ground floor accommodates foyer, checkroom, cashier’s desk, and catalogue sales, although most of its almost 500 m2 is used as a multifunctional exhibiting space for KUB Arena projects. Aside from its etched glass outer walls, three differently positioned concrete wall-slabs are visible on the ground floor. These support the Kunsthaus floors and ceilings, structuring the exhibition space on all three upper stories and dividing it from the main stairways, emergency exits, and passenger and freight elevators. Uniformly positioned entrances and exits structure a route through ground floor and upper stories. The latter differ only in ceiling height; each can be used as one large space or scaled down by means of mobile partitions, depending on the project. All three upper stories are top-lit. The ceilings of the exhibition spaces are of loosely joined glass panels. Incident light enters the building on all four sides through light bands and is distributed through the interior volume of each story by the glass ceiling panels. Artificial lighting in the cavity above the glass ceilings complements or replaces daylight as required. These light sources are not visible. The ground and three upper stories and their material and formal aesthetic make up a unity with great potential for art installations. Two subterranean levels complete the spatial program. The first, supplied with daylight by a light pit, accommodates a lecture room, the museum educational center, and sanitary rooms, separated from the non public areas (stock, maintenance, personnel rooms) by translucent glass brick walls. The second subterranean level is closed to the public. It accommodates an originals archive and storage space as well as the electrical, heating, and climate controls.

Administration building, café

The KUB administration building is set a short way off from the town side of the Kunsthaus, its black façade directed at the front of the Kunsthaus and its entrance. It acts as a transitional structure to the smaller and low buildings of the old part of the town. In addition to administration offices, the ground floor houses the KUB café. Peter Zumthor has displayed his uncompromising architectural vision here again, café, bar area, and kitchen being faced with black exposed concrete. In separating these amenities indispensable to a modern art gallery from the art exhibiting building, the latter can devote itself to its primary purpose.

KUB collection showcase

The Kunsthaus Bregenz has its own collection. One of the largest groups of works in the collection consists of architectural models by Peter Zumthor. Some of these exhibits have been archived since the architect's solo exhibition in 2007. Further models have been and are still being added to the collection as permanent loans. Since June 2012, a selection of these models is on show in the KUB collection showcase on the first floor of the post office building directly adjacent to the Kunsthaus Bregenz. Buildings and projects that were realized as well as those that remained in the design stage are on show. The variety displayed in the exhibition demonstrates the outstanding role that working with models and materials such as wood, metal, or clay plays in Peter Zumthor's studio.

List of exhibitions

Year	Artist(s)	Exhibition	Duration
1997	James Turrell	James Turrell	July 26–Sept. 7
	various	Kunst in der Stadt 1	July 26–Sept. 7
	various	KünstlerInnen	Sept. 29–Nov. 30
	Per Kirkeby	Personale: Malerei, Zeichnung, Skulptur	Dec. 6, 1997–Feb. 15, 1998
1998	Lois Renner	Lois Renner	Feb. 28–April 13
	various	Atlas Mapping: Künstler als Kartographen. Kartographie als Kultur	Feb. 28-April 13
	Adrian Schiess	Malerei. Personale	April 25–June 28
	various	Räume der Kunst	April 25–June 28
	Sepp Dreissiger	66 Fotoportraits aus der Vorarlberger Kultur	May 8–June 28
	various	Kunst in der Stadt 2	July 11–Sept. 20
	various	Lifestyle	July 11–Sept. 20
	Bechtold/Kalb/Neyer/Wacker	Werkschau	Oct. 3–June 27, 1999
	Rainer Ganahl	Rainer Ganahl	Oct. 10–Nov. 22
	Erwin Bohatsch	Malerei	Nov. 28, 1998–Jan. 24, 1999
	Gerhard Merz	Dresden	Nov. 28, 1998–Jan. 24, 1999
1999	Ingeborg Strobl	Einige Gegenstände. Und Sonnenuntergang	Jan. 30–April. 5
	Erwin Wurm	one minute sculptures	Jan. 30–April. 5
	Devlin, Gursky & Höfer	Räume	April 9–June 27
	Ernst Strouhal & Heimo Zobernig	Der Katalog	May 28–June 27
	Wolfgang Laib	Personale	July 10–Sept. 19
	various	Kunst in der Stadt 3	July 10–Sept. 19
	Keith Sonnier	Environmental Works 1968–99	Oct. 2–Nov. 28
	Helmut Federle	Personale	Dec. 9, 1999–Feb. 6, 2000
2000	Peter Kogler	Personale	Feb. 19–April 30
	Donald Judd	Farbe	May 13–July 2
	various	LKW(Lebenskunstwerke)	July 15–Sept. 17
	Symposium Kunsthäuser	Architektur vs Kunst – Kunst vs Museum	Nov. 16–18
	various	Museen für ein neues Jahrtausend	Oct. 3, 2000–Jan. 7, 2001
2001	Daniel Buren	Les Couleurs Traversées	Jan. 27–March 18
	Olafur Eliasson	The mediated motion	March 31–May 13
	Günther Förg	FÖRG	May 24–July
	Jeff Koons		July 18–Sept. 16
	Hiroshi Sugimoto	The Architecture of Time	Sept. 27–Jan. 6, 2002
2002	Douglas Gordon		Jan. 17–April 14
	Gilbert & George		April 28–June 23
	Louise Bourgeois	Zeichnungen und Skulpturen – Drawings and Sculptures	July 6–Sept. 15
	Ruth Schnell	Territorism (KUB Façade)	July 12–Aug. 18
	Pierre Huyghe	L'expédition scintillante	Sept. 28–Nov. 24
	Doug Aitken	NEW OCEAN (a shifting exhibition)	Dec. 7, 2002–Jan. 26, 2003
2003	Mariko Mori	Wave UFO	Feb. 8–March 23
	Gerhard Merz	fragmente bregenz 2003	April 12–June 22
	Franz West	We'll Not Carry Coals	July 5–Sept. 14
	Anish Kapoor	My Red Homeland	Sept. 27–Nov. 16
	various	Remind...	Nov. 30, 2003–Jan. 11, 2004
	Tone Fink	Carwalk	Dec. 6, 2003–Jan. 18, 2004
2004	Gary Hume	The Bird had a Yellow Beak	Jan. 24–March 21
	Santiago Sierra	300 Tonnen / 300 tons	April 3–May 23
	Jenny Holzer	Truth Before Power	June 12–Sept. 5
	Thomas Demand	Phototrophy	Sept. 18–Nov. 7
	Hans Schabus	Das Rendezvousproblem	Nov. 20, 2004–Jan. 16, 2005
2005	Jake + Dinos Chapman	Explaining Christians to Dinosaurs	Jan. 29–March 28
	various	Konstruktive Provokation – Neues Bauen in Vorarlberg	Feb. 5–March 28
	Rachel Whiteread	Walls, Doors, Floors and Stairs	April 9–May 29
	Roy Lichtenstein	Klassik des Neuen – Classic of the New	June 12–Sept. 9
	Siegrun Appelt	288 KW	July 9–Sept. 4
	various	Tu Felix Austria ... Wild at Heart	July 9–Sept. 4
	Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller	The Secret Hotel	Nov. 26, 2005–Jan. 15, 2006
2006	Jean-Marc Bustamante	-beautifuldays-	Jan. 29–March 19
	gelitin	Chinese Synthese Leberkäse	April 13–May 28
	Michael Craig-Martin	Signs of Life	June 10–Aug. 13
	Tino Sehgal		Aug. 17–Sept. 24
	Gottfried Bechtold	Reine und gemischte Zustände	Oct. 1–Nov. 19
	Cindy Sherman		Dec. 2, 2006–Jan. 28, 2007
2007	Marcel Duchamp, Gerhard Merz, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons	Re-Object	Feb. 18–May 13
	Joseph Beuys, Matthew Barney, Douglas Gordon, Cy Twombly	Mythos	June 2–Sept. 9
	Peter Zumthor	Bauten und Projekte 1986–2007	Sept. 29, 2007–Jan. 9, 2008
2008	Maurizio Cattelan		Feb. 2–March 24
	Carsten Höller	Carrousel	April 12–June 1
	Richard Serra	Drawings – Work Comes Out of Work	June 14–Sept. 14
	Jan Fabre	From the Cellar to the Attic – From the Feet to the Brain	Sept. 27–Jan. 25, 2009
2009	Markus Schinwald	Vanishing Lessons	Feb. 14–March 13
	Lothar Baumgarten	Seven Sounds/Seven Circles	April 25–June 21
	Antony Gormley		July 13–Oct. 4
	Tony Oursler	Lock 2,4,6	Oct. 24, 2009–Jan. 17, 2010
2010	Candice Breitz	The Scripted Life	Feb. 6–April 11
	Roni Horn	Well and Truly	April 24–July 4
	Cosima von Bonin	The Fatigue Empire	July 18–Oct. 3
	Raumlaborberlin	Bye Bye Utopia	July 18–Oct. 3
	Harun Farocki	Weiche Montagen / Soft Montages	Oct. 23–Jan. 9, 2011
	Antony Gormley	Horizon Field	Aug. 2010–April 2012
2011	Haegue Yang	Arrivals	Jan. 22–April 3
	Michal Heiman, Hannah Hurtzig, Katrin Mayer	KUB Arena: Living Archives - Kooperation Van Abbemuseum	Jan. 22–April 3
	various	So machen wir es. Techniken und Ästhetik der Aneignung / That´s the way we do it. The Techniques and Aesthetic of Appropriation	April 16–July 3
	Yona Friedman and Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz	KUB Arena	April 16–July 3
	Ai Weiwei	Art/Architecture	July 16–Oct. 16
	various	KUB Arena: Anfang Gut. Alles Gut. / Beginning good. All good.	July 16–Oct. 16
	Valie Export	Archiv / Archive	Oct. 29–Jan. 22, 2012
	Theatre project: International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM) Berlin	KUB Arena: Hate Radio	Oct. 29–Jan. 22, 2012
2012	Yvonne Rainer	Raum, Körper, Sprache / Space, Body, Language	Feb. 4-April 9
	various	KUB Arena: Bleibender Wert? Kooperation >springerin< / Enduring Value? Cooperation with 'springerin'	Feb. 4-April 9
	Danh Võ	Vô Danh	April 21-June 24
	Ulrike Müller	KUB Arena: Herstory Inventory: 100 feministische Zeichnungen von 100 KünstlerInnen / 100 feminist drawings by 100 artists	April 21-June 24
	Peter Zumthor	KUB Sammlungsschaufenster: Architekturmodelle Peter Zumthor / Architectural Models by Peter Zumthor	June 23-Oct. 28
	Ed Ruscha	Reading Ed Ruscha	July 7-Oct. 14
	various	KUB Arena: Sommerakademie. Kunst und Ideologiekritik nach 1989 / Art and ideological criticism after 1989	Sept. 24-Sept. 30
	Florian Pumhösl	Räumliche Sequenz	Oct. 26-Jan. 20, 2013
	various	KUB Arena: Nairobi - A State of Mind, Cooperation Goethe-Institute Nairobi, Kenya	Oct. 26-Jan. 20, 2013
2013	various	Love is Colder than Capital	Feb. 2-April 14
	Andy Warhol	KUB Arena: Andy Warhol - Fifteen Minutes of Fame	Feb. 2-April 14
	Wade Guyton, Guyton\Walker, Kelley Walker	Wade Guyton, Guyton\Walker, Kelley Walker	April 27-June 30
	various	KUB Arena: On the Move. European Kunsthalle at the KUB Arena	April 27-June 30
	Gabriel Orozco	Natural Motion	July 13-Oct. 6
	various	KUB Arena: Back to the Future. A Week in Summer of Art, Films, and Music	Aug. 5-Aug. 11
	Barbara Kruger		Oct. 19-Jan. 12, 2014
	Dora Garcia	KUB Arena: Dora Garcia	Oct. 19-Jan. 12, 2014

Further reading

• Zumthor, Peter: Kunsthaus Bregenz In: Kunsthaus Bregenz (Hrsg.): Archiv Kunst Architektur Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-7757-0720-4,(Werkdokumente/Kunsthaus Bregenz.).

References

• http://www.phantomspeisung.net/index.php?title=kunsthaus_bregenz_arch_peter_zumthor_1997&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

External links

• Official website
• Kunsthaus Bregenz (Architekt: Peter Zumthor, 1997)