The exhibition focuses on the oeuvre of the arbeitsgruppe 4, which is being presented to a broad public for the first time. As the title says: x projects, which are comprised of a manageable number that have been realised as well as projects that could not be completed. The group may be relatively well-known ? communicated primarily by the strong personalities of the protagonists Wilhelm Holzbauer, Friedrich Kurrent and Johannes Spalt ? however, this notwithstanding, it has almost achieved mythical status in the more recent architecture history of Austria. People interested in architecture know their work, but the precise details, background and context of the projects are largely still unknown. Neither any substantial reworking of source material nor any attempt at a representation from a temporal and personal distance has been undertaken to date. The Az W is now taking up this challenge, and in Spring 2010 is showing the exciting and the idiosyncratic universe of the arbeitsgruppe 4.

Due to the constellation of the team and the broad range of topics they address the discussion on the arbeitsgruppe 4 departs from the narrow field of a monographic representation of works. Furthermore, a comprehensive art historical engagement with the networked situation of all artistic disciplines and cultural fields in 1950s/60s Vienna (architecture-art-music-film-literature) is now required, and with this a more extensive debate. The polarity that exists between historicity (a conscious engagement with the past) and pioneering avant-garde achievements (structural technological innovation etc.) makes the arbeitsgruppe 4 an exhilarating phenomenon of its time, one that has gone beyond this to have had a „subliminal“ impact to this day.

A catalogue is being published to accompany the exhibition.

Curators: Sonja Pisarik/Ute Waditschatka, Az W