Curtain A Living Museum Space : the Vienna State Opera Safety Curtain

This volume documents the long-term initiative Safety Curtain initiated by museum in progress, a project that is unique in the world.The exhibition series, which takes place in the Vienna State Opera has represented a symbolic interface between performance and visual arts since 1998. It also creates a link between thorny historical questions and contemporary ways to address them.Beyond the actual curtain images that have originated over the years an associative and sensuous view to further related works of the participating artists in several different media forms is presented.With its exceptional quality, years-long existence and unusual dimension of 175 m, Safety Curtain is singular and enables a distinctive perspective of art history of the past 20 years.Artists include: Tauba Auerbach, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Thomas Bayrle, Tacita Dean, Elmgreen & Dragset, Cerith Wyn Evans, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Joan Jonas, Jeff Koons, Maria Lassnig, Oswald Oberhuber, Giulio Paolini, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rosemarie Trockel, Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, and Franz West.English and German text.