History

Over the 900 years of its existence the Admont Benedictine community has always been open to art and culture. Today the Monastery still keeps contact with the art and culture of our time. Since 1997 Admont Monastery has been continually building up a collection of contemporary art. At present this contains some 350 works by over 130 Austrian artists of the younger and middle generations.

The collection of contemporary art has two components: MADE FOR ADMONT commissions (especially sculpture, installations, photo art, multimedia art) and studio and gallery acquisitions (especially painting). In recent years artists like Lois Renner, Erwin Wurm and Rudi Molacek as “artists in residence” have created important groups of works especially in the field of photo art. Another central group - Thomas Baumann, Stefan Gyurko, Maria Hahnenkamp, Anna Jermolaewa, Werner Reiterer, Constanze Ruhm, Emil Siemeister - has produced for the Monastery collection works of art that are directed to non-visual perception. Essentially conceived for blind people, these specific works open new paths to the recption of art - for the sighted, too.

A core of the studio and gallery purchases contains mostly the most recent paintings of Austrian artists of the younger and middle generations - including numerous winners of the “Monsignore Otto Mauer Prize” (which Alfred Klinkan also was awarded in 1981). In addition to single works, the continually growing collection contains groups of works by selected artists. One major group is the generous gift of graphics and paintings by the Styrian Hannes Schwarz, which is permanently on exhibition. A cross-section of the paintings of Alfred Klinkan (1950-1994), who unfortunately died when only 44 years old, forms another large group.

A further large group consists of recent large-scale works by artists who made their name in the 1970s and 80s as representatives of the “New Painting” and have since developed in various different ways:  Siegfried Anzinger, Erwin Bohatsch, Herbert Brandl, Josef Kern, Alois Mosbacher, Hubert Schmallx. A total of 25 canvases from the 80s by Gunter Damisch, Herbert Brandl, Otto M. Zitko, Gerwald Rockenschaub and Alois Mosbacher from the collection of Rudi Molacek round out this area of the collection.

In 2003 a generous gift of 15 works of Austrian contemporary art was made to Admont Monastery by the firm of Neuner + Henzl Treu-Mandat GmbH.

The “Museum of Contemporary Art” is a platform for presenting various positions of topical art in ever new constellations. The Monastery is engaged in the young art scene. Precisely in hard economic times it is an essential promoter of art alongside the public authorities. Behind this living art collection are: the Admont monks, who provide the place and possibility for the realization of such a collection; the Monastery firms, represented by the leading management and roughly 500 employees who earn the financial means for the construction of the Museum, for purchases, exhibitions etc. The group forming the Monastery cultural committee, which builds up, maintains, and deepens the contacts to the art world via the artistic director of the Museum, invites artists to the Abbey, commissions works from them and/or acquires these from them.

Living with contemporary art is essential for Admont Monastery. Monks and Monastery employees can borrow works of art from the depot at any time and make full use of this. Contemporary art is something natural and living here.

List of artists in the Admont Monastery collection of Contemporary Arts
as at January 2009