CD-Rom with 2400 illustrations, name index, time line and search function, Secession, 2000
available in the shop
The Secession has published a CD-Rom, which conveys the history of the artists' association in a contemporary medium for the first time. With this, the Secession thus presents its in-house archive, which has undergone scholarly preparation in recent years with support from the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture and from GlaxoSmithKline Pharma AG.
In addition to the historical documents and works from the archive, the CD-Rom, conceived by Graf+ZYX, has a purposely contemporary focus. Today's members are thus represented with their current projects and texts about their work, and exhibitions from the last twenty years are documented extensively and with many illustrations.
The CD-Rom is based on a database containing the stores of the Secession archive. This includes art works, particularly paintings and graphics of the twentieth century, posters, editions of Ver Sacrum, exhibition catalogues since the inception of the association, and all the collected correspondence from 1898 to 1945. There is also a documentation of all past and present members of the Secession, including biographies and the dates of membership for over 800 artists. With texts about the historical development of the Secession and illustrated with about 2000 illustrations, the CD-Rom is intended for a wide audience ranging from interested exhibition visitors to scholars.
There are several possibilities available to the CD-Rom users for exploring the networked structure of the database. One option is to click one's way through the exhibition history of the Secession along illustrated paths and experience the adaptability of the main room in conjunction with the varying exhibition designs and installations. It is also possible to view all the cover pages of the editions of Ver Sacrum that are in the archive, as well as a selection of catalogue covers and Secession posters.
On the other hand, it is also possible to conduct a specific search for an exhibition or one of the over 10000 artists, who have been shown at the Secession since its beginning. In a specific search of this kind, the networked database structure of the CD-Rom reveals its full potential, because all the data relevant to the Secession can be called up with a query. The results of a search for an artist thus also display the artist's biography, a picture of the artist's work, a list of all the works by this artist in the archive, and a list of all the Secession exhibitions, in which the artist participated. Additionally, all the letters written by this artist in the correspondence archive from 1898 to 1945 are also listed, which means that new and important sources on the early period of the Secession are now available for scholarly research.
The clear layout in gray and white is designed to be as user-friendly as possible. The displays of lists are as well organized and the numerous color pictures are presented effectively. The CD-Rom thus conjoins the scholarly database and the illustrated history of the exhibition house into a complex picture of the Secession in the past and in the present.
We would like to thank the following companies for their support:
Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur
GlaxoSmithKline
For further information and photographic material please contact:
Pia Leydolt
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at