Centrope region: A museum for Arnulf Rainer

Born in Baden near Vienna in 1929, Arnulf Rainer is one of the world’s most important contemporary artists. Rainer, who turns eighty in December, even has his own museum now – the Arnulf Rainer Museum in the former Frauenbad public bath in Baden, well worth a visit, and not only on account of the works exhibited there.

Since last month, black surfaces and streaks have decorated the marble walls between the changing rooms and historic bathing pools of the former Frauenbad (which was not a public bath exclusively for women, but simply got its name from the neighbouring church, the Frauenkirche). Yet the juxtaposition of the abstract, non-figurative painting which dominates Rainer’s early work and the historic surroundings of a neo-classical public bath dating from 1821 by no means jars. Indeed, the location couldn’t suit Rainer’s work better, since it was precisely with the transformation or overpainting of graphic material he came across that Rainer made a name for himself from the 1950s onwards.

Art in the Frauenbad

Just as Rainer, with his overpainting of already existing pictures, ‘created something new out of something old’, the Viennese architects Lottersberger-Messner-Dumpelnik were faced with the task of adapting the historic structure of the public bath to accommodate a modern museum. This was not the first modification of the building, incidentally. The former public bath, which Emperor Franz Josef and his entourage used to frequent, has been used for exhibitions since 1977. Indeed, it was Arnulf Rainer whose works were used for the building’s artistic baptism in 1977. While it was above all examples of overpainting from the 1970s which were shown to visitors then, the current exhibition of the Rainer Museum, which has been open since September, concentrates on the artist’s early work.

The early years

Arnulf Rainer’s artistic beginnings were inspired by the French Surrealists. Together with Maria Lassnig, he went on an art trip to Paris at the beginning of the 1950s, in order to visit the high priest of Surrealism, André Breton – a visit which turned out to be rather disappointing. However, in Paris he came into contact with non-figurative or action painting, which had just developed there and, unlike geometrical abstract painting, involved a creative process that obeyed no fixed rules. The influence of this style led Rainer to do away completely with form in his work. Among other things, he began to paint with closed eyes. These ‘blind compositions’ can be admired in the former men’s changing room until March 2010, as part of the opening exhibition ‘Aller Anfang ist schwer’ (All beginning is difficult).

By crossing the newly-designed bridge and the platform, you reach the former bathing area, where Rainer’s early, large-scale overpainting works await you. In between, exhibited on a built-in intermediate level, are Rainer’s ‘Zentralisations’, clustered black surfaces which point towards the first overpaintings of his later period. His ‘Proportionsstudien’, which were inspired by Mondrian and produced at the beginning of the 1950s, are a rarity. These paintings can seldom be seen today, not least because the artist himself destroyed the majority of these studies because of a lack of space in his studio.



Another special feature of the museum is the small but well-stocked library focusing on Arnulf Rainer, giving visitors the chance to study the artist in more depth.