24 May 2024 ![]() Fashion.at recently received an invitation to the press event of the new exhibition 'Theft' (German title: Raub) at the Jewish Museum Vienna, which will open on June 5th. 'Theft' is a joint exhibition that can be seen at both the Jewish Museum and the Wien Museum until October 27. The preview of the exhibition's structure shows how the research results of the institutions - the Jewish Museum Vienna and the Wien Museum - on the collected objects and documents shed light on the biographies of Austrians who belonged to the country's cultural elite, but lost their status as members of society, their rights as citizens, had to flee or were killed in concentration camps during the Nazi regime. The exhibition texts also tell the story of what life was like for the persecuted after the Second World War, with a special focus on restitution and the return of stolen property. Fashion.at has read the preview of the wall texts. The texts implicitly tell how peace was restored among the Austrians. The Jewish Museum provides the biographical data about the person, his or her family, and the cultural and social context. The Wien Museum, which has been officially conducting provenance research for 25 years, reports on the basis of archived documents and further information about the changes in ownership since the 1930s until the restitutions. The joint exhibition 'Theft,' which focuses on the systematic looting and appropriation of Jewish property in Vienna during the Nazi era and the subsequent restitution efforts, begins with a film installation in which looted objects play the main role. They are symbolically packaged in the Jewish Museum and transported to the Wien Museum, where in reality many of the stolen objects were once incorporated into the collections of the City of Vienna. This setup makes the journey of these objects - and the act of their recovery - tangibly real. Several of the main exhibits provide insights into the design and fashion industry in Austria. For example, 'Theft' traces the life of Alfred Hofmann, who owned archive items from the Wiener Werkstätte and stored parts of the archive and numerous fabric print models in the factory of textile entrepreneur Bernhard Altmann. Both were forced to flee; Altmann became a successful fashion producer in the USA. The models were confiscated by the Viennese authorities and, after the annexation of Austria in 1938, transferred to the 'House of Fashion' founded by the Nazis. In 2016, the fabric print models were returned to Hofmann's heir, following a recommendation by the Vienna Restitution Commission. The heir kept six and donated the remaining 66 to the Wien Museum's fashion collection. Image: Film stills from the video installation of the exhibition 'Theft' at the Jewish Museum Vienna and the Wien Museum, on view from June 6 until October 27, 2024. Photos: © Patrick Topitschnig / Jüdisches Museum Wien / Wien Museum. |
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