“Dear
Curator…”: Correspondence as Care for Erwin Osen’s Lustknabe [Catamite] - 4th
Egon Schiele Symposium, Leopold Museum, Vienna, with Gemma Blackshaw
3 December 2021
Writing
Queer
Conference
3 December 2021
Writing
Queer
Conference
4th Egon Schiele Symposium, Leopold Museum, Vienna
3 December 2021
“Egon Schiele is now such a familiar name that it has become almost imperative to keep reappraising his art and to look at it from different perspectives. With the 4th Egon Schiele Symposium, the Leopold Museum is once again intending to do just that. As with past editions, this year’s event, too, features eminent lecturers from Austria and abroad who have approached the artist’s work and activities from various angles.”
Hans-Peter Wipplinger, Director of the Leopold Museum
“With their views of Schiele, the lecturers cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from the reconstruction of his participations in historic exhibitions via the point of intersection between art and medicine, Schiele’s exploration of artists including Gustav Klimt and Erwin Osen, all the way to the latest material-technological findings. This pluralism of approaches is testament to the vitality of Schiele’s oeuvre which we feel obliged to highlight through our scientific and curatorial work at the Leopold Museum.”
Verena Gamper, curator | Head of the Leopold Museum’s Research Center
The interactive event was attended by around 230 people. The lectures can still be watched until 12th December 2021 via the website of the Leopold Museum. With simultaneous interpretations of the lectures being offered in German and English – the respective audio channel could be selected in the live stream – the symposium reached an international audience.
***
Gemma Blackshaw, art historian and curator, and Adam Kaasa, architectural historian and artist at the Royal College of Art in London, reflected on curating in keeping with the concept of “care” – the meticulous treatment and custody of works, places, people, stories and legacies – in their contribution “’Dear Curator...’: Correspondence as Care for Erwin Osen’s Lustknabe”. Referencing the treatise published by the artist Johanna Hedva in 2016, and based on feminist and queer theories, Blackshaw and Kaasa approached Erwin Osen’s depiction of a patient entitled Lustknabe [Catamite] (1915), which was shown for the first time in the 2021 focus exhibition at the Leopold Museum The Body Electric: Erwin Osen – Egon Schiele curated by Gamper and Blackshaw, in the form of an epistolary dialogue.
3 December 2021
With lectures by Christian Bauer, Gemma Blackshaw, Verena Gamper, Adam Kaasa, Jane Kallir, Elisabeth Leopold and others.
On 3rd December, the Director of the Leopold Museum, Hans-Peter Wipplinger, and Verena Gamper, Head of the Leopold Museum’s Research Center, hosted the 4th symposium dedicated to Egon Schiele. Due to the current lockdown, the all-day symposium was held as an online event that was accessible for free via a streaming link.“Egon Schiele is now such a familiar name that it has become almost imperative to keep reappraising his art and to look at it from different perspectives. With the 4th Egon Schiele Symposium, the Leopold Museum is once again intending to do just that. As with past editions, this year’s event, too, features eminent lecturers from Austria and abroad who have approached the artist’s work and activities from various angles.”
Hans-Peter Wipplinger, Director of the Leopold Museum
“With their views of Schiele, the lecturers cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from the reconstruction of his participations in historic exhibitions via the point of intersection between art and medicine, Schiele’s exploration of artists including Gustav Klimt and Erwin Osen, all the way to the latest material-technological findings. This pluralism of approaches is testament to the vitality of Schiele’s oeuvre which we feel obliged to highlight through our scientific and curatorial work at the Leopold Museum.”
Verena Gamper, curator | Head of the Leopold Museum’s Research Center
The interactive event was attended by around 230 people. The lectures can still be watched until 12th December 2021 via the website of the Leopold Museum. With simultaneous interpretations of the lectures being offered in German and English – the respective audio channel could be selected in the live stream – the symposium reached an international audience.
***
Gemma Blackshaw, art historian and curator, and Adam Kaasa, architectural historian and artist at the Royal College of Art in London, reflected on curating in keeping with the concept of “care” – the meticulous treatment and custody of works, places, people, stories and legacies – in their contribution “’Dear Curator...’: Correspondence as Care for Erwin Osen’s Lustknabe”. Referencing the treatise published by the artist Johanna Hedva in 2016, and based on feminist and queer theories, Blackshaw and Kaasa approached Erwin Osen’s depiction of a patient entitled Lustknabe [Catamite] (1915), which was shown for the first time in the 2021 focus exhibition at the Leopold Museum The Body Electric: Erwin Osen – Egon Schiele curated by Gamper and Blackshaw, in the form of an epistolary dialogue.
4th Egon Schiele Symposium, Leopold Museum, Vienna, 3 December 2021