Reading and Media Lounge

Set in the heart of Salzburg’s old town, the redesigned reading and media lounge at the Rupertinum invites the public to read, look, and rest. It offers selected literature from the libraries of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg and the Generali Foundation. Visitors also enjoy access to the Generali Foundation’s media library featuring around five hundred films and videos.

Library

When books are no longer stored in the stacks of a library but presented in fresh arrangements, they open a new door to knowledge and inspiration. The library becomes a more accessible and livelier place, a scene of discovery and social engagement.

The reading and media lounge on the Rupertinum’s top floor puts these ideas into practice. A landscape of colorful book islands provides access to the libraries of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg and the Generali Foundation. Visitors will find illuminating background information on the exhibitions at the museum, collection catalogues, and recent releases as well as an alternating selection of books on issues and concerns of today.

The seating area consists of an ensemble of furniture sculptures that the artist Franz West designed together with Marcus Geiger, Peter Kogler, and Heimo Zobernig. West himself said that his sculptures become “art only when someone takes a seat” on them.

Want more? The selection of books presented here is just the tip of the iceberg. Visit the Generali Foundation Study Center on level 2 (access via the atrium) to start exploring the two libraries’ complete holdings. Comprising around 49,000 titles, they are a treasure awaiting curious readers and researchers.

Media library

In the reading and media lounge, film and video files are no longer just safely held on the media storage devices of a collection—they are made accessible for individual voyages of discovery, allowing visitors to chart their own paths through the holdings and their contents.

The media library offers access to around 500 works on film and video in the Generali Foundation Collection as well as recordings of lectures, discussion events, and performances. The collection’s foci are experimental work with the media of film and video, feminist perspectives, and political films. The media library boasts nearly complete oeuvres on film by major artists including VALIE EXPORT, Andrea Fraser, Harun Farocki, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Martha Rosler.

For starters, we present exemplary works from the collection on a video island, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the early days and diverse currents of Austrian and international video art.

Issues in focus at the reading and media lounge

The reading and media lounge is restocked on a regular basis to bring into focus diverse thematic concerns—from art and media to social issues. Each focus comes with carefully selected book recommendations, films, archival materials, and special programming. A place to browse, think, and find inspiration.