With the controversy that has surrounded the art collection of
Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer for the last 70 or so years,
it’s a miracle their works are even on display in the United
States at all.
Five paintings from the Bloch-Bauer collection highlighting the
work of Viennese artist Gustave Klimt will be visible to the public
at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through June 30.
But in this exhibition, Klimt’s works nearly become
upstaged by the conflict surrounding the ownership of these
paintings, debated since 1938 and not settled until January of this
year.
Upon entering the museum, viewers find themselves confronted
with an eight-minute film describing the collection of Ferdinand
and Adele Bloch-Bauer, a prominent Viennese Jewish family of the
early 1900s. Adele Bloch-Bauer is widely known as one of
Klimt’s muses, and the only woman he ever painted twice.
In her will, Adele left her Klimt portraits, among other works,
to her husband Ferdinand, who was forced to flee from Austria after
its annexation by Nazi Germany. The Bloch-Bauer collection was
stolen by the Nazi government and placed in the Austrian Gallery.
Ferdinand left his art collection to his sole heir, Maria Altmann,
likely aware of the difficulties she would face in regaining
ownership.
A series of legislation beginning in 1998 eventually allowed
Altmann to contest the ownership of the paintings in U.S. Supreme
Court in 2004. In January, an Austrian panel returned five of six
paintings to Altmann, now a resident of Los Angeles.
With such a compelling and remarkable story, it’s easy to
see why LACMA makes it center-stage. And indeed, knowing the back
story of the art certainly brings a sense of urgency and immediacy
to viewing the five paintings, aptly setting the context of the
exhibit itself.
But the exhibit really provokes a fascinating meditation on the
close relationship of art and politics.
In addition to the five recovered paintings, LACMA curators pair
the display with the works of Klimt’s contemporaries, who
together organized the Vienna Secession, a small like-minded group
of artists who often showed their work together in exhibitions and
sought to break away from conservative art associations.
It is a fitting intersection of contemporary politics with the
art politics of Klimt’s own day.
Yet the five paintings themselves demand far more attention from
the viewer, and rightfully so. Although the number of works is
small, it offers an insightful overview of Klimt’s approach
to different paintings, as well as his evolving personal style.
Perhaps the most famous work on display is the original portrait
of Adele Bloch-Bauer, an imaginative intersection of fantasy and
reality.
Adele’s visage and hands are painted in a sensitive,
realistic fashion, but are nearly engulfed by the sumptuous gold
and silver background and foreground, with elaborate embossment
reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics or Egyptian iconography. Thin,
vertical columns of black and blue balance the portrait and
contrast nicely with the rest of the painting’s fluidity.
Adele’s second portrait is also on display, this time
placing her between swirls of vibrant color. Again, the human form
itself is realistic, but the environment around her is highly
creative.
Klimt takes a similar approach to nature in his remaining three
landscapes. In each, Klimt selects a particular focal point and
hones in on its essence, disregarding the complete, broader
scene.
He masterfully depicts varying textures with minute differences
in the direction or intensity of his strokes and balances his
outbursts of color with linearity or hints of geometric shapes.
While LACMA’s Klimt exhibit does not intend to be
retrospective, it does effectively demonstrate the conflicting
politics that lurk within the art world.
““ Natalie Tate
E-mail Tate at [email protected].