2000s Bye-bye Confidence

With the reopening of the Wien Museum at Karlsplatz, the musa returns as an exhibition venue for contemporary art. The first show continues the successful series that has probed the City of Vienna’s contemporary art collection. After exhibitions on the decades of the 1950s to the 1990s, this time the focus lies on contributions from the 2000s.

Bye-bye Confidence — the first decade of the new century: the sense of a new beginning after the millennium was abruptly shattered by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Artists dealt with themes such as migration, global warming, monuments and memory, and aesthetics and economics. The observation of one's own body was prominent as well, encouraged by the rise of smartphones along with the consequent selfie cult. Photographers trained their lenses on urban non-sites, while painters pulled off yet another decade of formal diversity.