The Return of the Old Ghosts

In autumn 2010, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna reopened its Gallery of Paintings under the title “The Return of the Old Masters” after a long planning and conversion period. Developed as part of a one-year project within the Art and Communication study program at the Institute for Education in the Arts together with the Academy’s Gallery of Paintings and its Graphic Art Collection, the exhibition project “The Return of the Old Ghosts” in the xhibit space relates to this new presentation, exploring the relationship between the academy’s (educational) collections and the history and present-day context of education-in-the-arts programs. What about the knowledge, the views, and the artistic subjects (re)produced by the extant archives? How can young artists, informed by the institution, inscribe themselves into this institutional framework without adopting its nationally oriented configuration? Graphic, photographic and filmic works were developed for this exhibition project conceived by students of the Art and Communication program together with students of and graduates from the Institute for Fine Arts who also created a display and worked out a curatorial concept.