A NOVEL EXHIBITION AT THE MUSEUM OF DIGITAL ART
Hot on the heels of the runaway success of “From Monet To Kandinsky’’ comes the world premiere of a new multimedia exhibition, “Something Nouveau, Klimt, Mucha, Beardsley” at the Museum of Digital Art (MODA) at River City Bangkok.
On display from Jan 15 until April 16, the works of Klimt, Mucha and Beardsley spring to life with light and music, celebrating the golden period of art, design and architecture known as Art Nouveau.
This most aesthetic of modernist movements is recognised for the beauty and individuality of its style, which has inspired devotees and garnered admirers across the globe to this day. Though its time frame was rather narrow, roughly 1890-1910, in its search to find a truly modern aesthetic, Art Nouveau became the defining visual language, if only for a fleeting moment.
The multimedia exhibition “Something Nouveau, Klimt, Mucha, Beardsley” consists of three “novels”, devoted to the art of these reputable masters of the style. Over 500 stunning images are projected onto large screens at different angles in a huge multimedia room. Visitors are given the opportunity to take a closer look at every last detail to give an especially revealing look at the emotionally charged piece.
The young Englishman Aubrey Beardsley was perhaps the figure who best embodied Art Nouveau’s beauty and short-lived brilliance. As well as being one of the aesthetic movement’s most celebrated practitioners, he was also its most controversial. Beardsley’s designs are extraordinarily elegant, yet his bizarre sense of humour, and fascination with the grotesque and taboo, meant that contemporary audiences were simultaneously intrigued and repelled.
Before his untimely death due to tuberculosis at the age of just 26, he produced a remarkable body of work. The most gorgeous of Beardsley’s series, including Le Morte d’Arthur, Salomé and illustrations for The Savoy, The
Studio and The Yellow Book magazines, are on show at the exhibition.
Czech artist Alphonse Mucha’s representations of la femme nouvelle (the new woman) are illustrative of the emerging medium of graphic advertisements. Women were a favourite subject in the artist’s work, since they serve both allegorical and decorative purposes.
Austrian Gustav Klimt was likewise primarily concerned with the female body, and this would bring controversy later in his career. His early works are marked by a more conventional approach, featuring naturalistic depictions of historical scenes. As his career progressed, Klimt’s work moved away from such orthodoxy, and the artist developed a more distinctive personal style.
Art Nouveau appeared in a number of different guises around the world, and, consequently, it is known by various names. In Scotland, there was the rectilinear Glasgow Style. In Italy, it was Arte Nuova or Stile Liberty. Belgium had the style nouille (noodle) or coup de fouet (whiplash). The US variation was Tiffany Style. Germany and Austria knew it as jugendstil (young style). In France, it was Style Metro or La Belle Époque.
— Yvonne Bohwongprasert