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Successful relaunch of the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts/
Contemporary Art) Vienna:
Five powerful positions on clay

“At last!”- some will have sighed before casting a hopeful glance in the direction of the MAK Vienna. Finally a new curator is to manage this prestigious museum’s important collection of glass and ceramics.
Katja Miksovsky took up this position in November 2004. Since then, the ceramics scene has been hoping that the museum might give up its remarkable restraint regarding ceramics and related exhibitions.These initial expectations have been fulfilled and the curator announced her arrival with the exhibition “Keramik. Austrian Ceramics Today.” (...)

Wilfried Gerstel showed nine wall reliefs in which he crosses the simplifying and popular forcefulness of bygone myths of salvation and fantasies of redemption with those of today. Superman, pictured as a modern-day Jesus - surrounded, stared at, brought face-to-face with suffering creatures not only of this world but also of the underworld and the worlds in between - fails in his mission to heal them of their greed.The last wall relief includes a speech bubble in which the stranded saviour of the world says: “The Problem, Pa said, is man.”

The fascination derives from the enormous expressivity of the figures which Gerstel seems to mold almost effortlessly, but also from the masterful mix with the world of comic strips. In fact, Gerstel has identified and exploited the similarities between both visual languages – despite the centuries separating them.
We look forward to seeing what the 39-year-old will show us in the coming years. His works are grounds for great hope.

Editorial team for Austria, in
KeramikMagazin, Nr. 4, 2005

KeramikMagazin Nr.4, 2005, S.38

Successful relaunch of the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts/
Contemporary Art) Vienna:
Five powerful positions on clay

Editorial team for Austria, in
KeramikMagazin, Nr. 4, 2005