After the presentation of selected works from "Art Brut. Works from the Infeld Collection" at the Oto Bihalji-Merin Salon in Belgrade in December 2023 and January 2024, this significant exhibition will be fully opened at the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Jagodina on January 18, 2024, at 6 PM. At the opening, the attendees were addressed by Amadeus Faltainer, director of the Austrian Cultural Forum, Danijela Vanušić, assistant Minister of Culture for Cultural Heritage and Digitalization, Svetlana Stojilković, director of the dr Miloje Milojević Music School from Kragujevac, and Ivana Bašičević Antić, PhD, director of the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art. The exhibition will last until May 31, 2024.
"We are very pleased that this significant exhibition, of which we presented a selection of works to the audience in Belgrade, will be displayed in its entirety at the premises of the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Jagodina. All 90 works, along with accompanying video materials, will be exhibited on three levels in the Museum building. The audience will also have the opportunity to enjoy a special musical program," announced Ivana Bašičević Antić, PhD, director of the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art.
The exhibition features works from the 1950s by internationally renowned masters such as Scottie Wilson, Ilija Bosilj, and Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, as well as pieces by artists from Gugging near Vienna, including Oswald Tschirtner, August Walla, Johann Hauser, Heinrich Reisenbauer, and Fritz Koller, all the way to the art culture of great Austrian painters like Arnulf Rainer and Peter Pongratz, who sought and found inspiration in art brut.
The beginning of the "Infeld" Collection, which today is one of the largest art collections in Austria, was made by the Viennese school of fantastic realism close to surrealism. After an exhibition in 1965, Peter Infeld felt the need to collect paintings and meet their creators personally: "I liked the meticulous ways of painting, returning to the techniques of the old masters, engaging in psychoanalysis." That confusion of different ideas, which were foreign to me, encouraged me to buy. From the very beginning, a cordial relationship developed with the painters, with people who unfailingly followed their own path... I wanted to provide assurance regarding their quality. Wherever that painter goes, I will follow him."
Personal acquaintance with the painters of Viennese fantasy was followed by a permanent, passionate engagement with their art and decades of friendship with Ernst Fuchs, Anton Lehmden, Arik Bauer, Wolfgang Hutter and Rudolf Hausner. Regular visits to exhibitions and studios enabled Viennese string makers to follow the creative path of these artists.
Peter Infeld, who was a successful businessman all over the world, collected not only Viennese fantasy painters, but also constantly discovered new artists. In this way, he managed to form a collection of a wide spectrum. In addition to the Vienna School of the fantastic realism, the focus of the collection was naive art, pop art, paintings for Buddhist meditations from Tibet (so-called tangka) and art brut.
Peter Infeld writes: "The wide spectrum of contemporary art was chosen, in turn, based on the personal sensibility of the artist and his way of creating." From this understanding of collecting comes a completely personal affinity and emotional relationship to the work of art."
The works of art brut artists from Gugging, near Vienna, with whom the Infeld family is connected by decades of friendship, are no exception. Margareta and Peter Infeld tried to maintain personal contact with the artists and visited them often. "The great old lady" Infeld could not be deterred even by the great physical effort of constant trips to Gugging for the selection of the works of local artists, which were determined by the proximity of their creators," recalls prof. Johann Feilacher (Johann Feilacher), longtime director of the Gugging Art Brut Center. For him, these "works are not just pictures created anytime and anywhere, but are witnesses to a personal relationship between the Infeld family and the artists." This relationship can be read from numerous works and makes the "Infeld" Collection unique.
Three works by one of the most famous Austrian artists, Arnulf Reiner, are part of this exhibition. They were created as part of visits to Gugging, which began in the mid-sixties of the 20th century, and occupy a special place. On them, the artist established direct contact with Arnold Schmidt and Johann Hauser, painting over their works in 1994.
