AEIOU
Installed 2002
A cubic art pavilion by Anselm Kiefer (2002) in Furtwänglerpark. Walk of Modern Art #1, the very first commission. Named after the enigmatic Habsburg motto Alles Erdreich ist Österreich Untertan.
Topic
Contemporary Art
41 entries tagged Contemporary Art on Introducing Salzburg.
ARGEkultur
Founded 1986
Salzburg's principal alternative cultural centre, founded in 1986. Year-round theatre, concerts, dance, readings, and interdisciplinary events that deliberately operate outside the mainstream Festival world.
Arthotel Blaue Gans
Inn since 1549
Arthotel Blaue Gans is on Getreidegasse, Salzburg's most famous shopping street and the address of Mozart's birthplace, in a building dating to 1350. The Blaue Gans (Blue Goose) has been an inn at this location for centuries and has reinvented itself as an art hotel, filling the historic structure with rotating contemporary art.
Awilda
Installed 2010
A monumental white bust of a young woman by Jaume Plensa (2010). Walk of Modern Art #9. Approximately five metres tall, standing in the University of Salzburg law faculty courtyard. Named after a legendary Scandinavian pirate princess.
Berliner Block
Installed 2017
A massive rectangular stone block in Mirabell Gardens by Georg Trieb (2017). Walk of Modern Art. A deliberately plain object contrasting with the surrounding Baroque garden's ordered symmetry.
Beyond Recall
Installed 2011
Four neon light cubes on the Staatsbrücke by Brigitte Kowanz (2011). Walk of Modern Art #10. A deliberate act of remembrance for the victims of the Nazi regime. Kowanz died in 2022.
Blaue Gans Restaurant
Inn since 1549
The restaurant of the Arthotel Blaue Gans at Getreidegasse 41. Inn since 1549. Contemporary art on the walls, Austrian cooking with modern interpretation. Medieval architecture meets current culture.
Caldera
Installed 2008
A large bronze sculpture by Tony Cragg on Makartplatz (2008). Walk of Modern Art #6. Organic, swirling form that visitors can enter and experience from within.
Chiemseehof
Seat of the Salzburg state parliament (Salzburger Landtag). Named after the medieval Bishops of Chiemsee. Courtyard contains Anselm Kiefer's Die Sprache der Vögel, the final Walk of Modern Art commission.
Cloak of Conscience
Contemporary
There is no body inside the cloak. The bronze sits under the southern arch of Salzburg Cathedral as an empty hooded mantle, folds and all, with the figure who should be wearing it simply absent.
Connection
Installed 2011
An 11-metre stainless steel wave sculpture by Manfred Wakolbinger at Rudolfskai (2011). Walk of Modern Art #10. Visitors can pass through it. One of the less-visited Walk pieces.
Die Sprache der Vögel
A monumental bronze sculpture by Anselm Kiefer in the courtyard of the Chiemseehof (Salzburg's parliamentary building). Walk of Modern Art final work. An eagle's wings rising from a towering stack of books, 4.2 metres tall.
Frau im Fels
Installed 2007
Companion piece to Sphaera by Stephan Balkenhol (2007). Walk of Modern Art #5. A female figure emerging from a stone wall in the Toscaninihof, suspended between presence and absence.
Furtwänglerpark
A small park between the Festival halls and the Mönchsberg cliff face, named after Wilhelm Furtwängler. Home to the Gurken sculpture and AEIOU pavilion. A breathing space in a dense part of the city.
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
Founded 1983
One of the world's leading contemporary art galleries, founded by Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg in 1983 before expanding to Paris, London, and Seoul. Exhibitions timed partly around the Festival season.
Galerie Welz
20th-21st century
The gallery began as a picture-frame and gilding workshop, the family trade Friedrich Welz (1903-1980) inherited and, in the mid-1930s, turned into one of Austria's most significant commercial art galleries.
Gurken
Installed 2011
Oversized cucumber sculptures in Furtwänglerpark by Erwin Wurm (2011). Walk of Modern Art #10. Vegetables of no cultural pretension, enlarged to the scale of monuments. One of the few Walk pieces that makes people laugh.
Hangar-7
Red Bull built a glass-and-steel hangar at Salzburg Airport in 2003 to display its aircraft collection and contemporary art, and added one of Austria's more ambitious restaurants in the same space. The building by architect Volkmar Burgstaller is a curved glass shell that makes the vintage aircraft and Formula 1 cars visible from the outside at night.
Homage to Mozart
Installed 2005
A monumental sculpture by Markus Lüpertz (2005) near Ursulinenplatz. Walk of Modern Art #3. A meditation on creative energy, not a reverential portrait.
Kapitelplatz
The Kapitelplatz is a large square on the south side of Salzburg's Cathedral (Dom), flanked by the cathedral's south facade, the Residenz (Archbishop's palace), and the Festungsberg (the rock from which the Hohensalzburg Fortress rises). The Neptunbrunnen, a Baroque fountain (1732), anchors the historic center of the space.
Mönchsberg Ridge Walk
The definitive self-guided walk in Salzburg. Ridge-top traverse of the Mönchsberg from north to south, passing the Museum der Moderne, Stadtalm, Humboldtterrasse, Richterhöhe, ending at Hohensalzburg Fortress. 1.5-2 hours. Free. The single most rewarding thing a visitor can do.
Museum der Moderne Mönchsberg
Opened 2004
Salzburg's modern and contemporary art museum sits on top of a limestone cliff directly above the Baroque old town, which is one of the odder institutional juxtapositions in Austrian cultural geography.
Rupertinum
The city-centre venue of the Museum der Moderne, specialising in works on paper: prints, drawings, watercolours, and photography from the 20th and 21st centuries. Walking distance from the Festival halls.
Salzburg Foundation
The foundation behind the Walk of Modern Art: 14 permanent public sculptures by international artists across the city since 2002. Anselm Kiefer, James Turrell, Marina Abramovic, Tony Cragg, Stephan Balkenhol, Jaume Plensa, Erwin Wurm, and more. Free, permanent, open-air museum.
Sky Space
Installed 2006
A permanent Sky Space installation by James Turrell (2006), adjacent to the Museum der Moderne Monchsberg. Walk of Modern Art #4. An architectural chamber with a precisely shaped aperture opening directly to the sky.
Sphaera
Installed 2007
A five-metre golden sphere on Kapitelplatz by German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol (2007). Walk of Modern Art #5. A 1.4-metre bronze figure of an ordinary man stands on top looking across the square. Companion piece: Frau im Fels in the Toscaninihof. Nine metres total height including pedestal.
Spirit of Mozart
Installed 2004
A light installation on the Staatsbrücke by Marina Abramović (2004). Walk of Modern Art #3. Transforms the bridge's nocturnal atmosphere in honour of the city's most famous son.
Szene Salzburg
Salzburg's leading venue for contemporary performing arts: dance, theatre, performance art, and interdisciplinary work outside the classical mainstream. Operating since the 1970s.
Vanitas
Installed 2009
An installation by Christian Boltanski (2009) in the Romanesque crypt beneath Salzburg Cathedral. Walk of Modern Art #8. Twelve sheet-metal figures cast shifting shadows by candlelight. A recorded voice announces the time at regular intervals. Boltanski died in 2021.
Walk of Modern Art
The Walk of Modern Art is a self-guided trail of 17 permanent public sculptures installed across Salzburg by the Salzburg Foundation since 2002.
Ziffern im Wald
Installed 2003
Fibonacci sequence numerals in the Mönchsberg forest by Mario Merz (2003). Walk of Modern Art #2. Discovered one by one as the walker moves through the trees behind the Museum der Moderne Monchsberg. Merz died in 2003, the year of the installation's completion.
The records
People tagged Contemporary Art
Anselm Kiefer
painterb. 1945
One of the most significant artists of the post-war era. Kiefer has the unique distinction of two permanent Walk of Modern Art commissions in Salzburg: AEIOU (2002), the inaugural commission, and Die Sprache der Vogel (2019), the last and largest work in the series.
Christian Boltanski
artist1944 - 2021
French conceptual artist whose Vanitas (2009) in the Romanesque crypt beneath Salzburg Cathedral places twelve sheet-metal figures casting shifting candlelit shadows alongside a recorded voice announcing the time. The work resonates powerfully with the Jedermann tradition performed outside on the Cathedral forecourt every summer since 1920.
Erwin Wurm
artistb. 1954
Austrian conceptual artist best known for his One Minute Sculptures. His Gurken (2011), a cluster of oversized cucumber sculptures in Furtwanglerpark, is a characteristic provocation that places the comic in a formal baroque garden context.
Georg Trieb
sculptorb. 1952
Austrian sculptor whose Berliner Block (2017), a massive rectangular stone block in the Mirabell Gardens, confronts the ordered baroque symmetry of one of the city's most beloved gardens with an elemental, unworked form.
James Turrell
artistb. 1943
American artist who works exclusively with light and space. His Sky Space (2006) at the Museum der Moderne on Monchsberg is a permanent chamber with an elliptical aperture open to the sky, one of the few Turrell Sky Spaces permanently accessible to the public in a European museum.
Jaume Plensa
sculptorb. 1955
Catalan sculptor whose Awilda (2010), a five-metre white bust of a young woman with closed eyes, stands in the courtyard of the University of Salzburg's law faculty on Kapitelgasse. Named after a legendary Scandinavian pirate queen.
Manfred Wakolbinger
sculptorb. 1952
Austrian sculptor whose Connection (2011), an eleven-metre steel wave at Rudolfskai, creates a dialogue between the medieval city wall and a contemporary organic form. Visitors can step inside the curving steel structure.
Mario Merz
artist1925 - 2003
One of the leading figures of Arte Povera. His Ziffern im Wald (2003), the second Walk of Modern Art commission, installed Fibonacci numerals in neon on the trees of the Monchsberg forest, visible at night from below. A mathematical poem written across the hill that watches over the city. Merz died the same year the work was completed.
Stephan Balkenhol
sculptorb. 1957
German sculptor who created two permanent Walk of Modern Art works in Salzburg: Sphaera on Kapitelplatz (a man standing on a golden sphere) and Frau im Fels in the Toscaninihof (a woman half-emerging from stone).
Tony Cragg
sculptorb. 1949
British sculptor who created Caldera (2008) on Makartplatz, a large enterable bronze sculpture whose swirling, cave-like interior invites visitors to step inside. Turner Prize winner (1988).