For a few months, Kunst Haus Wien, world-renowned as the Hundertwasser Museum, is to close its premises to visitors for a state-of-the-art upgrade of the building. Despite the closure, the Museum is to remain present – and close by. The CLOSE/D outdoor exhibition and community programme is set to open on June 27 with a summer street party around the corner from the museum, in front of TRÖSCH III, the new community centre. Indeed, while the premises are being made fit for purpose climate-wise, the Museum is literally stepping out into the public space and incorporating the local area referred to in Vienna as the Hundertwasser Grätzl.
“With CLOSE/D, we want to leave our old ways of thinking behind and shake off any inability to take action in favour of a sustainable future that is well worth living. That also includes stepping out beyond our own Museum premises into the immediate neighbourhood and forging new ties with the people who live and work there. The invited artists will engage in different ways in a dialogue with the planet and its atmosphere, with the flora and fauna, the Danube Canal, the urban infrastructure and architecture, and with neighbours, visitors and passers-by. In this way the public space becomes a place that shows not only what already exists, but what might also still come to be”.