REFELXIONEN

about Anton Kolig's destroyed frescoes

Exhibition in the Museum of the Nötscher Kreis
vom 1. Juli bis 1. November 2020

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Carinthian referendum on October 10, 1920, the Museum of the Nötscher Kreis deals with the important fresco cycle that Anton Kolig and a small group of his Stuttgart students from 1929 to 1930 in a conference room of the Klagenfurt country house for the 10th anniversary of this historic event.

The modernity and the unconventional effect of the paintings at that time met with incomprehension and outrage shortly after the work was completed and finally culminated in 1938/39 in its destruction by the National Socialists as „degenerate art“. As a result, posterity of this remarkable monumental work by Kolig was only a series of black and white photos. Therefore, in a joint exhibition project with the Klagenfurt country house, the Museum of the Nötscher Kreis attempted to reconstruct these wall paintings documentarily and to investigate the question of their possible colors and their optical effects. In addition to black-and-white reproductions of the original-sized frescoes and paintings by Kolig from around 1930, works by young art students from the Vienna University of Applied Arts and the artist Elisabeth Wedenig are shown that have dealt creatively with this monumental work.

Exhibition curator: Sigrid Diewald

Modell Koligsaal Museum dNK ©fatzi

Guido KATOL, Frühling (Ausschnitt), 2020, Foto Ferdinand Neumüller

Exhibition in the Klagenfurt Landhaus from June 30th to October 31st, 2020

Landhaus, Landhaushof 1
9020 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee
Monday to Saturday 10 am to 4 pm Tel. +43 (0) 463/577 57-215

The exhibition project of the Museum of the Nötscher Kreis about the former fresco cycle Anton Kolig and his workshop in the Klagenfurt country house is complemented at the original location by artistic reflections by the painter Guido Katol about Anton Kolig’s destroyed frescos and makes the close connection between present and past clearly perceptible.

In 1929, the government of Carinthia commissioned Anton Kolig to artistically decorate a conference room in the Klagenfurt country house between the Little Coat of Arms Hall and the State Parliament meeting room with frescoes. The painter was given the central event of recent Carinthian history, the popular vote of 1920, which Kolig implemented in a very personal way and in his typical style. But almost ten years later, Kolig’s murals were chopped off by the Nazis and irretrievably destroyed. When in 1999 Cornelius Kolig, grandson of the artist, redesigned the room using the preserved historical photographic material and incorporating his own related works, the hall was once again the focus of a political agitation campaign that culminated in media persecution and abuse of the artist. In 2020, Guido Katol dealt with the artistic works of Anton and Cornelius Kolig in the Klagenfurt country house in three large-format canvas pictures and created an exciting dialogue with the eventful history of this place.

Due to the current situation, you can find our event dates at www.kaerntner-landtag.ktn.gv.at