Due to the appropriation of figurative art for Nazi propaganda, many artists shortly after World War II considered figuration tainted and no longer a viable path of artistic expression.
Abstraction, on the other hand, stood as a symbol of freedom, and the Albertina Klosterneuburg dedicates three rooms in its second opening exhibition to representatives of Austrian abstract post-war art – foremost among them Arnulf Rainer, Wolfgang Hollegha, Josef Mikl, and Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
While their art is strongly influenced by international trends, the Vienna Actionism subsequently emerges as an art movement originating from Vienna, partly leaving the image and the surface and venturing into actionism.
In Germany, in the 1960s, figuration makes a comeback, but not in the form of Pop Art as in America, but in the confrontation with the generation of fathers, their atrocities in National Socialism, and its consequences reaching into the time of the division of Germany. Here, artists like Anselm Kiefer, Markus Lüpertz, Georg Baselitz, and Gerhard Richter are noteworthy, who, however, did not develop a common style but remained solitary in their artistic expression.
The culmination of this second exhibition is the grand dame of Austrian art, Maria Lassnig, whose body awareness images capture both the impressions of a frightening world on one's own consciousness and bring the pivotal role of women into focus through feminist consciousness.
