The exhibition looks at the seminal and multilayered practice of Oswald Oberhuber, its impact on the University of Applied Arts through the 1970s to the 1990s, and an art-political discourse which remains relevant to this day.

As an artist, exhibition organizer, critic and university rector, Oswald Oberhuber (1931-2020) embraced the idea of “permanent change”. His design concepts cut across all areas of the university, including the founding of an art collection. The critical engagement with “Austrian art history”, the university’s past as well as the effects of the Nazi regime on art and culture is pivotal to Oberhuber’s practice.

The exhibition Schule Oberhuber uses the holdings of Collection and Archive to examine the potential of a university collection to critically interrogate art historical narratives. At the former Imperial and Royal School of Arts and Crafts female students were admitted as early as 1867. Their art works within the collection allow a kind of alternative narrative to the prevailing art canon. Questioning the hierarchical separation of fine and applied arts was central to the pedagogical program, which offers new perspectives on art production. Drawing on his exhibition Österreichische Avantgarde 1900-1938. Ein unbekannter Aspekt (1976/77) (Austrian Avant-Garde 1900-1938. An Unknown Aspect), his large-scale sculpture Museum im Museum (1978), as well as other publications and projects, the exhibition reflects and expounds Oswald Oberhuber’s efforts for a revision of the prevailing canon of modernist art history and his proclamation for an alternative “art school”.

Works by numerous students and artists from the collection exemplify the progressive teaching approach at the former School of Arts and Crafts around 1900 and trace connections to the European avant-gardes as well as fundamentally debating matters of artistic form.

These debates on form unfold through the artistic exhibition design by the artist Robert Müller, which generates a space for the works to correspond with each other on different levels. At the same time, one finds a narrative thread that guides through the exhibition with Oberhuber's forms of design and mediation, such as his posters, furniture, and publications.

The exhibition locates Oswald Oberhuber’s commitment to a broader view of modernism far beyond fantasies of purity. The exhibition is a “school within the school”, that gives Oberhuber's work a new accessibility while continuing to address contemporary issues.

In September - November 2022, as a follow up to the exhibition, the University Gallery will present an exhibition focusing on works from the collection by the artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898 - 1944). Comprehensive publications will accompany both exhibitions.