Hollein wants to open MAK doors ‘wide wide’

“I hope we can become more visible, more present and bright, sending welcome signals,” she said Tuesday at her first annual online news conference. This must be understood in terms of urban space and structure. Howlin sees MAK as the “house of artists”.

MAK Garden, for example, accessible from the Wotruba Promenade at the rear of the building during museum opening hours, and the colonnaded hall will open. The former directorate has been a new exhibition, speech and performance space since Tuesday. Hollein has moved one floor to the other office area.

“A new look at groups”

The museum director, who has been in office since September, also focuses on increasing collaboration, breaking down barriers, and changing perspectives in other ways. One wants to “take a fresh look at the collections of existing discourses”. In the medium term, a partial revision and reorganization of the “Vienna 1900” and “Carpet” areas is planned.

Multidisciplinarity and multiculturalism are important to Lilli Hollein, participating in ongoing social processes is just as natural to her as dealing with the pressing environmental and civilizational questions of our time. For example, people take pride in the eco-label.

Some changes to the plan

The organization of the “Vienna Biennial for Change” founded by her predecessor Christoph Thun Hohenstein at MAK will not continue, but will make a contribution if it continues in a different context. According to Howlin, it garnered some annual program points from existing plans, such as exhibitions for the Missing Link Group of Architects founded in 1970 and the Hagenauer Metal Workshop.

The Great Exhibition “Festival”

After the grand exhibition Josef Hoffmann has been postponed until June 19, only one major exhibition will take place in the MAK exhibition hall in 2022: For “Das Fest. Between Representation and Turbulence” (from December 14), guest curator Brigitte Felderer works with all areas of the collection.

Based on many aspects and vows, Houlin said it is about the festival “in its political and creative dimension,” and declared with a smile, “I am convinced that we will then also do a hands-on exercise.”

20% more audience than 2020

In light of the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic, there is currently no festive mood at MAK. The number of visitors, which reached 108,000, increased by 20 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, but this was at the level of 2014 and the record half year 2019, said commercial director Theresa Mitterlehner Marchesani.

Financially, with the help of CoV, you are currently “reasonably earning your expenses. We will also be able to close 2021 more or less evenly.”