Die Nackte Wahrheit – Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka und andere Skandale (28 January to 24 April 2005)

In preparation for our trip, I visited this special exhibition in Frankfurt’s acclaimed Shirn Art Space just days before driving to Vienna.

The Naked Truth is an exhibition of works by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, and contemporaries who worked in Vienna early in the twentieth century. In this exhibition, works are placed against the social backdrop of their time. The works were not only controversial but actually scandalized high society. The artists were accused of indecency – some were even briefly jailed. The Schirn emphasized the radical quality of these works and thereby illustrates how these artists helped to introduce Modernism.

Vienna at the start of the twentieth century was a conservative city. Although the Austrian Empire was long past its peak of power, Vienna seemed richer than ever; despite personal tragedies, the Habsburg imperial family seemed solidly in power. Vienna is a city marked by pomp and splendor. In art, conservative themes highlighting the achievements of the empire are the norm. In architecture, no building façade is left unadorned from detailed ornamentation. However, some artists are ready to rebel and shock Viennese society to its core.

In this city, Gustav Klimt’s work came as a shock. His "Nuda Veritas" introduced a phase now sometimes referred to as the naked truth, where a more realistic portrayal of human nudity became the norm. Debates on Klimt’s works raged in newspapers, society’s meeting places, and even the national parliament. One critic had nothing against nudity in paintings but did his women have to be that ugly?

Klimt’s contemporaries such as Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, and Anton Kolig went even further and obsessively painted tabooed themes such as homoeroticism, masturbation, and sexuality and power. Women with legs, amongst other things, wide open were a favorite theme. The line between art and pornography is fine and often blurred…

Not only the artists, but also the architects of the period shocked Viennese high society. Adolf Loos designed a building with a façade devoid of ornamentation and had it built on Michaelsplatz, which faces the Hofburg imperial palace in Vienna. In protest, the furious emperor ordered the curtains permanently drawn on all palace windows facing the scandalously naked building.

Culture and art are favorite pastimes of middle class Germans and they do not let their children miss out. A group of around eight-year-old children was traipsing through the galleries on a guided tour. Wheeling my one-year-old through said exhibition, I did not bat an eyelid, but some of the other visitors were surprised, to say the least. I saw the group again later, still enthralled by the guide’s story while studying a painting of a man with an enviably huge penis.

The Schirn is open daily from 10am to 7pm, closing at 10pm on Wednesday and Thursday. Admission was €8.