experience
experience Klimt Experience: The Challenge
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Art in Digital Format
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Technology 7 Artist’s Biography
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Klimt’s Vienna
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The Vienna Secession
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The Female Figure in Klimt’s Art
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Landscapes 33 Beethoven Frieze
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The Kiss
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The Flowery Phase
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The Show Set-Up
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Klimt Experience: The Challenge I am proud to present art enthusiasts with a new Crossmedia Group multimedia production: Klimt Experience, an unprecedented display dedicated to the life and work of the famous Viennese artist, one of the most important figures of the modern era. The figures and landscapes of Klimt’s art are the absolute protagonists of this immersive representation dedicated to the founding father of the Vienna Secession, who, together with other artists, cultivated the myth of the total work of art and the dream of a democratization of creativity and that which is beautiful. Works such as The Kiss, The Tree of Life, or Judith I, have become part of popular culture, but Klimt is still an artist about whom there is much to discover and, above all, to recount. This is the aim of the show: to entertain, intrigue and amaze a public young and old, inviting them to delve into knowledge of the man and the artist, about his work and style, with the spectacular display of details and pictorial technique. Klimt is surely, along with Picasso, necessary to the understanding of the passage from 19th century art and society to that of the 20th centu-
ry. He was capable of giving coherence to the image of the culture of his time, to new tastes and lifestyles. In his magnificent portraits he captured in depth the unrest of human psychology beyond its glossy surface, and investigated fundamental themes such as life and death, birth and pain, the relationship between man and woman, and that between generations. Translating his art into a digital show was a challenge that involved our pool of editorial professionals, video makers, art historians, computer engineers, and sound technicians. A vast didactic area introduces the multimedia show, with fixed informative supports and integrated experiences to delve in depth into the artist thanks to interactive multimedia tables. Furthermore, thanks to the Oculus Samsung Gear VR stations, a state of the art technology that creates the realistic sensation of physically entering the works, it will be possible to perceive every figurative and color detail in three dimensions. The result is the experience you are about to live. Good “immersion� to all!
Sergio Risaliti Art Director of Klimt Experience
On pages 2 and 3: the very famous signature by Gustav Klimt with whom the artist used to mark his works. Left: G. Klimt, Hygeia, detail from Medicine, oil on canvas, 1901-1907, destroyed in the 1945 fire of the Immendorf Castle.
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Art in Digital Format With Klimt Experience we intend to offer our visitors something that will completely revolutionize the runof-the-mill idea of an art show. We use digital technology to deliver a thorough overview of the work of the founder of the Vienna Secession, a show that uses the visual grammar of video-mapping production in the service of narrating the story of the great Viennese master Gustav Klimt, proposing an innovative and totalizing idea of experiencing a work of art. Those who would like to participate in our show will be put in contact with all of Klimt’s art, from his debut to his last paintings, and it will be an immersive and immediate contact: absolute and enveloping. The digital reproduction of the Austrian painter’s entire body of work makes it possible to display the visual objects panoptically while proposing a thorough approach to the themes in Klimt’s art, without forsaking this project’s first aim: impressing visitors, and eliciting their amazement and wonder. In fact the Klimt Experience is a work of art in itself, and we hope it is a work of art that the great artist would have appreciated. To him we humbly pay homage: for this is a total work of art in digital format, which takes its strength from the specific knowledge of our time and uses it to celebrate the triumph of beauty above all else.
Fake Factory Realization of the video installation
Left: the projections interact with the site, redesigning and enhancing it.
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Technology It is above all thanks to the innovative proprietary MATRIX X-DIMENSION® technology, designed exclusively for this video installation, that it was possible to create an immersive experience of Gustav Klimt’s art. 45 minutes in which images, lights, colors, music, and sound envelop the audience, bonding with the allure of the location. Thus a fusion of technology and architecture is achieved, capable of giving the illusion of being transported on an incredible journey through Klimt’s work. 24 laser projectors transmit over 40 million pixels on the surfaces of the exhibition setup, reproducing images with a resolution greater than Full HD and generating 3D effects that emphasize the location’s structure. The projections on the floor and the architectural video-mapping complete the suggestion in synchronous harmony with the narrative rhythm and the show’s emotional accents. A state of the art 3D audio system broadcasts sounds and the superb soundtrack. The set-up required quite a lot of work and quick thinking. A complex endeavor, designed and completed in coherence with the principle at the base of multimedia communication: technology must never be an end in itself, but functional to the enhancing of the contents to which it is instrumental.
Left: motifs from the great artist’s most famous paintings cover the entire space and envelop the public. Details and textures from G. Klimt, The Tree of Life, from the Frieze for the Stoclet Palace in Brussels. On pages 8 and 9: on the central scene, G. Klimt, Judith I, detail, oil on canvas, 1901, Oesterreichische Galerie im Belvedere, Vienna. On the side, G. Klimt, Judith II, details, oil on canvas, 1909, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna Ca’ Pesaro, Venice.
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Artist’s 1862
On July 14th Gustav Klimt is born in Baumgarten, the working class suburbs of Vienna, the son of Ernst Klimt, a goldsmith, and Anna Fluster.
1876
He enrolls in the Arts and Crafts School of the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry (Kunstgewerbeschule) where he studies applied arts, learning to master several artistic techniques.
1883
Along with his brother Ernst, just slightly younger and destined to an untimely death, he establishes the Artists Association, a sort of workers’ cooperative in which artists shared studios and commissions, which were many.
1886
Their first ma jor commission is the decoration of the new Burgtheater in Vienna, built by architects Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer.
1892
A few months after his father’s death, his brother Ernst also dies suddenly: his grieving, followed by a long period of inactivity, deeply influences Klimt’s artistic development. The same year he meets Emilie Flöge, who will become his lifelong companion (although Klimt has many liaisons with other women).
1897
By now openly in contrast with the rigid canons of the academia, he founds, along with another 18 artists, the Vienna Secession, the most important trend in Austrian modernism, which also publishes the magazine «Ver Sacrum», of which 96 issues are printed until 1903. The ideal guiding the movement is that of the Gesamtkunswerk, the total work of art. The symbol of Secessionism is Pallas Athena.
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Biography 1902
On the occasion of the 14th Show of the Artists of the Vienna Secession, dedicated to German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, Klimt produces a 24-meter-long frieze divided between three walls, painted with casein-based colors on plaster applied on a support of interwoven canes, with the application of semi-precious stones and mother of pearl elements. The work is known as The Beethoven Frieze.
1903
During the year, Klimt travels to Ravenna two times to study the Byzantine mosaics: this experience leads to a new phase of Klimt’s artistic development, the so-called golden phase, during which the artist produces some of his most famous works, such as Judith I, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, The Kiss, and Judith II.
1905
Serious tension in the Secession causes the separation of a group of artists, again following Klimt’s lead, interested in persuing ever more radically the aim of the total work of art.
1908
On the occasion of Emperor Franz Joseph’s jubilee, a large show of Austrian art is organized, the Kunstschau. 179 artists in over 54 halls displayed paintings, graphic works, architectural pieces, and more: furniture, trunks, fans, jewelry, glass works, ceramics, posters, theatre costumes, fashion, children’s art, garden art, funeral art, a theatre and a café. The organizer of the show is Klimt, who participates with 16 paintings, among which The Kiss.
1911
He is awarded the First Prize at the International Exhibition of Art in Rome for The Three Ages of Woman.
1918
Upon returning from a trip to Romania, on January 11th, 1918, he suffers a stroke that leads to his death on February 6th of the same year. 11
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Klimt’s Vienna The city in which Klimt works is abuzz: a modern European capital that, with the demolition of the Medieval walls, has overcome its ancien régime urban layout.
During the decade preceding the artist’s birth, in fact, a season of urban renewal had blossomed with the construction ordered by Emperor Franz Joseph of the Ringstrasse, a vast boulevard surrounding the historic city center following the outline of the old and now useless defensive structure: along the boulevard, now the city’s main artery, many public buildings rose, such as the university, the city hall, the parliament, several playhouses, the Opera, the fine arts and natural sciences museums, a
large new church. Furthermore, there are public gardens, cafes, upper middle class housing, and new squares. A certain architectural eclecticism is established, defining the late 19th century cityscape. A few years later, the first construction works for the subway begin, with the creation of a partially underground and partially above ground route, administrative buildings, and 25 stations. The modernization leads Vienna to compete with cities such as Paris and Berlin, Munich and Brussels.
On pages 12-13: on the central scene A. Vita Wilhelm, Emperor Franz Joseph, 1893. Left: G. Klimt, The Old Burgtheater, 1888, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna.
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Over a few years, the city becomes a metropolis: along with the ma jor social and urban changes, several political trends blossom, such as zionism, antisemitism, austro-marxism, and neo-corporatism. In this milieu Karl Kraus, Robert Musil, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Arthur Schnitzler compose their masterpieces. Art circles also draw opportunity and inspiration from this new season. In fact, the construction and decoration of the new buildings makes way for a rich market of public commissions. Along with the figurative arts, poetry and music are inclined to symbolism and decadentism. The absolute
protagonists of the times are Richard Wagner (author of grandiose lyric operas such as Das Rheingold, Die WalkĂźre, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal), and above all Friedrich Nietzsche, who publishes some of the most revolutionary works of the late 19th century (The Birth of Tragedy, Ecce Homo, Thus Spoke Zarathustra). Alongside philosophy is psychology, the new science born in Vienna, which also deals with the irrational side of the human mind. In 1899 Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams, a fundamental volume in the study of the subconscious.
Right: inside a 3D frame, the most important buildings of 19th century Vienna.
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The Show
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Set-Up
Klimt VR Experience, virtual reality experience With the Klimt Oculus VR Experience, the visitor is offered the chance to penetrate Klimt’s paintings. Thanks to an app developed specifically for Samsung Gear virtual reality headsets, the concept of “immersion” achieves a new standard of possibility. In fact, by simply wearing the headsets, the visitors of the Klimt Experience will be offered the opportunity to “enter” the work of the Austrian painter. Visitors will get the chance to test themselves with the dimension that can’t be found in Klimt’s art:
depth. They will be able to navigate the hall of the Beethoven Frieze. They will set off on a journey to discover the space hidden behind the frames of paintings, exploring the landscapes painted by the great Austrian painter, coming close to the lovers embracing in The Kiss and witnessing the centrifugal escape of the single elements on their gowns, observing in the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I the breakdown of the ornamental apparatus, or being present at the birth of the Tree of Life.
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PRODUCED BY
experience
Credits Concept: Federico Dalgas Art Director: Sergio Risaliti Product Manager: Andrea Moreschini Communication Manager: Roberto Fiorini
VIDEO INSTALLATION Production: Fake Factory Direction: Stefano Fomasi Iconographic Research: Giulia Raineri Historical Research: Raffaele Nencini Image Archives: F.lli Alinari / Scala Group
INTRODUCTIVE AREA Texts: Raffaele Nencini Graphic and Design: Giulia Raineri / Fabio Vallana VR Experience: Orwell
COMMUNICATION Public Relations: Massimo da Cepparello Website: Fabio Vallana Social manager: Raffaele Nencini / Fabio Vallana
CATALOG Texts: Raffaele Nencini Design and Layout: Giulia Raineri Print: Litografia Ip
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Klimt’s life, figures, and landscapes are the absolute protagonists of the Klimt Experience, a multimedia immersive representation dedicated to the father of the Vienna Secession. An evocative production, full of special effects, 3D reconstructions and multi-projections. An immersive experience that is art exhibit and performance in one. www.klimtexperience.com www.ctcrossmedia.com
ISBN 978-88-942197-8-4
PRODUCED BY
9 788894 219784
10,00 euro