The first ever temporary exhibit at the newly-inaugurated home of the Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts Lausanne invites us under the surface of Vienna in 1900.
Skin. It’s the physical and metaphorical barrier between our external and internal worlds. A fragile and fleshy veil behind which everything that makes us human is hidden.
It’s no wonder then that this outer layer serves as a vehicle for understanding the human experience at a critical moment in history, the birth of a century and of modern art.
At its first-ever temporary exhibit in its newly inaugurated home, Under the Skin. Vienna 1900, from Klimt to Schiele and Kokoschka, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts gathers paintings, sketches, design objects, and fashion to tell the story of Europe at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Wandering through the exhibit and admiring the audacity of broken codes, the flamboyance of Klimt, and glimpses of a self-confident vulnerability and optimism, we couldn’t help but think of what was to come to Vienna a short fourteen years later.
Alas, skin; it’s also an apt image of our human frailty.
Under the Skin. is open at the MCBA new home at Plateforme 10 until May 24, 2020.
