1920s: The Avant-Garde in the Fine Arts

Avant-gardism, which emerged at the beginning of the 1910s in literature and the fine arts, found a lively continuation in postwar Vienna. Essential impulses came from artists and intellectuals who emigrated from Hungary following the overthrow of the Soviet Republic (e.g. Lajos Kassák, Sándor Barta) and founded various journals in Vienna, among them the Ma (“Today”), which was published between 1920 and 1925 – sometimes bilingually – and a significant institution for literary texts, manifestos, graphics and the reproductions of artworks. Among the authors were the most important actors of the avant-garde currents of the time (such as El Lissitzky, Claire Goll, or Jean Cocteau).

As a platform for exchange between Austrian and international artists there was also the International Exhibition of New Theatre Techniques (Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik), organised by Friedrich Kiesler, which took place as part of the Vienna Music and Theatre Festival in 1924 at the Vienna Concert Hall. Between 1920 and 1924, Viennese Kineticism built on International Constructivism. Artists such as Erika Giovanna Klien, Elisabeth Karlinsky, Maria (My) Ullmann (all students of Franz Cizeks at the Vienna School of Applied Arts) dealt with the form and rhythm of movement sequences in their artworks.