Venues:
Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Originated in modified form at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (September 2002 – May 2003).

Curators:
Susan Davidson and Dieter Bogner.

Artist:
Frederick Kiesler.

Exhibition description:
Peggy and Kiesler: The Collector and The Visionary considered the legacy of the collaboration between Peggy Guggenheim and Frederick Kiesler. The exhibition focused on Art of This Century, Peggy Guggenheim’s New York museum-gallery, legendary not only for the innovative design of its exhibition spaces but also for its groundbreaking collection and exhibitions. In February 1942, Austrian architect and artist Frederick Kiesler was invited by Peggy Guggenheim to convert two tailor shops on 57th Street into galleries for her collection of early modernist European art. Kiesler created what has come to be considered an architectural masterpiece, exploring radical new possibilities of exhibition design. His theory of unity between art and environment led him to design three distinct gallery spaces, ‘Abstract,’ ‘Surrealist’ and ‘Kinetic,’ the interiors of which were conceived as extensions of the imaginary space and content of the works of art themselves. Peggy and Kiesler: The Collector and The Visionary was based on an exhibition of Kiesler’s designs for Guggenheim’s gallery presented at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, during 2002-2003. The show put on view extensive archival material including over 150 original architectural drawings, exhibition announcements and catalogues, letters, invoices, documents and photographs. Examples of Kiesler’s ‘correalistic’ furniture is moreover displayed alongside paintings and sculptures that made their first appearance at Art of This Century. Significantly, this exhibition is presented in the context of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, in the presence of the many masterpieces shown at Art of This Century, thereby representing a unique opportunity to study the unprecedented synthesis of architecture and art that the gallery created. Continuing a collaboration that began with the Frankfurt presentation, the designers of casino container (Uwe Wagner and Claudia Hoffmann) adapted the gallery space in order to facilitate and increase the visitor’s visual and interactive contact with the materials.

Partnerships:
Exhibition organized in partnership with the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation.

Catalogue:
Davidson, Susan and Philip Rylands eds. Peggy Guggenheim & Frederick Kiesler. The Story of Art of This Century. Venice and Vienna: Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Austrian Frederick and Lilian Kiesler Private Foundation, 2004.

Catalogue in English, with preface by Thomas Krens (Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation), acknowledgements by Philip Rylands and Susan Davidson. Essays by Philip Rylands, Dieter Bogner, Susan Davidson, Francis V. O’Connor, Don Quaintance, Valentina Sonzogni and Jasper Sharp. Catalogue also includes an exhibition history of the displays at Art of This Century.

Library location: GUGG PGC 2004 .04, UFFICIO 28 0002.