Visitor Record
Feb 20, 2019 | JMW News
133,000 visitors in 2018
The Jewish Museum Vienna can take a gratifying look back at 2018 and report a new record. In 2018, the result of the previous year was exceeded once again: 133,261 visitors at both museum locations represent an increase of three percent. An absolute visitor record was also reached for the Museum Judenplatz location.
Numerous highlights in 2018
The exhibition “The Place to Be. Salons – Spaces of Emancipation” about the Viennese salonnières from Fanny von Arnstein to Berta Zuckerkandl turned out to be a particular crowd puller at Palais Eskeles. Moreover, the exhibition “Helena Rubinstein. Pioneer of Beauty” at Museum Judenplatz helped establish an all-time high of 25,684 visitors at this location. The exhibition on the cosmetics pioneer was taken over by the Jewish Museum Paris (mahJ) and will be on view there as of March 19, 2019. At the Museum Judenplatz, the successful exhibition “Leonard Bernstein. A New Yorker in Vienna” will be running until April 28, 2019.
Internationally, the exhibitions of the Jewish Museum Vienna also received a great deal of attention. The exhibition “Comrade. Jew. We only wanted Paradise on Earth” was chosen as one of the top 10 international exhibitions by The New York Times. “The increasing interest and the great—also international—reception confirms the museum’s strategic orientation to present Jewish culture in its multifaceted ways,” says Director Danielle Spera.
Preview: 90 years of Arik Brauer and the Hare with the Amber Eyes
The 2019 exhibition program offers several sensations and considerable highlights. From April 3, 2019 onward, the Jewish Museum Vienna will shed light on Arik Brauer’s many facets to mark his 90th birthday. Besides the artist Arik Brauer, the”mensch” Arik Brauer will be the center of focus while the stages of his life in Vienna, Paris and Jerusalem will be traced. Personal documents from the family archive and works of art created specifically for the exhibition reflect the nine decades of the universal artist’s life.
In the autumn of 2019, the exhibition on the history of the Ephrussi family and the little figure “The Hare with the Amber Eyes” will be awaiting visitors of the Jewish Museum Vienna as a world sensation. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the Ephrussi Family Archives, donated by the De Waal Family to the museum in 2018, as well as 157 netsukes, part of a long-term loan to the museum by the De Waals. The famous ivory figure “The Hare with the Amber Eyes” will be the climax. The exhibition deals with the fate of the Ephrussi Family, who was originally from Odessa. Loans from international museums and works from various art collections will make the exhibition an absolute must-see in the 2019 museum year.
On the international museum scene, the Jewish Museum Vienna will be represented by the “Helena Rubinstein. Pioneer of Beauty” exhibition in Paris, with the “Kabbalah” exhibition in Amsterdam, as well as with an exhibition in New York. At the Austrian Cultural Forum there, the Jewish Museum Vienna will be showing the different photographic perspectives of the Austrian artists Tatiana Lecomte and Yvonne Oswald in an exhibition entitled “VOID”.