Bird Flight

Overlooked by the history of art like many other twentieth century female artists, and included in Lea Vergine’s The Other Half of the Avant-Garde,  published in the 1980s, Klein was one of the most interesting exponents of the Kinetism movement, founded by Franz Cizek in Vienna after the First World War.

Right from its origins, Kinetism developed the idea that the individual energies of young people can only be freed from the rust of tradition by an education in art. It was a kind of humanistic avant-garde that connected dynamism with psychic and sensory movement, and renounced the aggressive myth of speed and movement embodied by Futurism.

“The word Avant-garde itself comes directly from bellicose, military jargon – points out Bart van der Heide – and it defines the perennial need for change and radical renewal typical of Modernism. All the same, change does not always have to be necessarily violent. The vision of Erika Giovanna Klien and the Kinetists opens the way to an alternative concept of change that is not activated at the expense of others. Radical in their own way, the Kinetists state that change comes from within and is based on the fundamental effect of the human experience.”

In this exhibition, the utopias linked to the theme of flight converge with two pillars of modern and contemporary art – light and movement – both of which stand at the centre of Klien’s visionary art. But the show – curated by Bart van der Heide, Andreas Hapkemeyer and Brita Köhler, with a layout designed by Matilde Cassani – does more than simply recount and display her work. Bird Flight, in fact, creates a conversation between the works of the Austrian artist and a number of light and kinetic works from the Museion collection. These include four youthful works by Klien herself, in order to display her personal contribution to the Avant-Garde by demonstrating her contemporary relevance and influence on future generations.