Rainald Franz – författare

Das Buch dokumentiert erstmals umfassend das Gesamtwerk Josef Hoffmanns. Als Wagner-Schüler, Gründungsmitglied der Wiener Secession ( 897), Professor an der Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule ( 899– 93 ), Mitbegründer der Wiener Werkstätte ( 9 3), des Deutschen Werkbundes ( 9 7) sowie des Österreichischen Werkbundes ( 9 2) kultivierte er ein Modell moderner Lebensweisen auf der Basis einer handwerklich geprägten, künstlerisch ambitionierten und gestalterisch avancierten Bau- und Produktkultur. Über 4 illustrierte Essays namhafter ExpertInnen zu den wichtigsten Bauten, Interieurs, Ausstellungen, kunstgewerblichen Entwürfen und Produkten stellen alle Sparten seines großen Œuvres dar. Großzügige Bildstrecken, eine detaillierte Biografie und ein umfassender Dokumentationsteil runden das Buch zu einem neuen Standardwerk ab.

Otto Prutscher (1880-1949) was an architect and a designer in all applied arts media, as well as an exhibition designer, teacher and member of all the important arts and crafts movements, from the Secession to the Wiener Werkstätte and the Werkbund. The MAK - Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna - possesses a comprehensive graphic bequest and many significant objects from Prutscher's design oeuvre. Selected examples of Prutscher's creative work document his long-lasting influential role as a designer and artistic adviser for decorative art companies from Johann Loetz to Thonet. The publication conducts an audit of Prutscher's work as a pacemaker of Viennese modernism - over twenty years since the last show in Vienna and seventy years on from his death.Text in English and German.

Gestural sculptures formed in ceramics are the focus of Erwin Wurm: Dissolution. Wurm’s anthropomorphic ceramic sculptures, their forms oscillating between the ephemeral and the physical, are characterised by performative gestures. They affirm the inherent plasticity of the material clay, recalling the potency of bozzetti, in which artists from the Renaissance onwards were able to give direct expression to their innermost creative ideas. In Dissolution (2018–2020), Wurm sets out in search of a creative process that cannot be completely controlled. “Dissolution” has connotations of disintegration, decay, decomposition, and vanishing boundaries. The sculptures — with their protruding fingers, hands, lips, mouths, breasts, bellies, noses, and ears — force their way out of a clay mass.Text in English and German.

In his unique works Franz Josef Altenburg realised in clay the process of reduction and simplification that he had been pursuing systematically throughout his career. Combining the texture of the material with the order of his creations, the result is major series ranging from his Houses, Stairs, Pedestals, and Backdrops to his Blocks, Towers, Scaffolds, Containers, and Frames. With his expert mastery of handling and design techniques evident throughout the six decades of his oeuvre, Altenburg elevated ceramics into the realm of fine art.This book documents and analyses the artist, his work, and the site of his creativity in texts by art experts and a writer and offers for the very first time a comprehensive overview of his works, as well as an extensive illustrated biography with a list of exhibitions.Text in English and German.

The Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna holds a unique collection of Italian maiolica from the 15th to the 18th century, which is now being published almost in its entirety for the very first time. Maiolica tableware, Italy’s luxury export, spread to the courts of northern Europe from the early 16th century. Today, the MAK’s holdings from former imperial, ecclesiastical, aristocratic, and private ownership enter into a dialogue with maiolica from well-known Austrian and Central European collections. Timothy Wilson, professor emeritus at Balliol College Oxford and former Keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and Rainald Franz, curator at MAK, together with other experts provide an extensive insight into the development of maiolica in its cultural and historical context. Thus a scholarly exploration of one of the best collections of maiolica in the world has now been scientifically examined for the very first time.With contributions by Rainald Franz, Michael Göbl, Nikolaus Hofer, and Timothy Wilson.