Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Growing Lines

Friedensreich Hundertwasser has been hailed as one of the foremost Austrian artists of the twentieth century. As part of the upcoming celebrations marking his centennial in 2028, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg’s Altstadt (Rupertinum) venue will present the exhibition Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Growing Lines during the 2027 Salzburg Festival summer. The exhibition focuses on the early years of the artist’s career, when he drew vital inspiration from travels, and gathers highlights from his early oeuvre.

Formative travels

Hundertwasser’s stays in Italy, France, and Japan during the 1950s and early 1960s were pivotal to his creative evolution. In Paris, for example, he met exponents of the avant-garde. In traditional Japanese aesthetics, architecture, the garden, and the landscape are closely interwoven. Under this influence, Hundertwasser began to think of architecture as part of the natural ecosystem.

Iconic performances

The line had always been at the heart of Hundertwasser’s work. He regarded the organic line as an expression of “creative evolution in harmony with the organic processes of nature and the cosmos.” Hundertwasser’s meditations culminated in the programmatic essay The Straight Line Leads to the Downfall of Our Civilization. The line first played a defining part in his paintings—then its role grew beyond the canvas. Beginning in 1953, he devoted himself to the spiral, a motif that reflected universal circular processes of life—a metaphor for becoming and passing away, and for the cycle of nature.

The exhibition also spotlights Hundertwasser’s work as a pioneer of action and performance art. One example is the painting action The Hamburg Line, which he realized together with Bazon Brock at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts in 1959. The project involved drawing an “endless” line.

Hundertwasser and the Rupertinum in Salzburg

The Rupertinum itself bears Hundertwasser’s signature. When the Collegium Rupertinum, an edifice from the early Baroque period, was converted into an exhibition venue in the 1980s, he drew up a concept for the façade: “Tree Tenants” and colorful ceramic appliqué “Tongue Beards” were to adorn the windows. The proposal sparked a controversial debate in the city, and parts of it were eventually implemented.

The exhibition project is realized in close collaboration with the Hundertwasser Private Foundation.