8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar

Returning Home?

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It's strange about seeing a picture out of context. I often go into the National Gallery to view Britain's only Klimt - a 1904 portrait of Hermine Gallia. But at the moment you can't see it in London, because it's come to Vienna to be displayed alongside other Klimts and Josef Hoffmann artefacts in an exhibition at the Unteres Belvedere. Seeing it in, what are for me, foreign surroundings was strange. I half expected to walk out of the room onto Trafalgar Square. Of course, it is a return home for the painting. Klimt 'belongs' in Vienna. Like those Aciman 'Shadow City' moments, whenever I see the painting in London it reminds me of Vienna. Seeing it here in Vienna, reminded me of London and the glories of the National Gallery. Loans. Restitution. Returning pictures to those to whom they belong. Adele Bloch-Bauer. The Elgin Marbles. How tedious it would be if all art works were back in their places of origin (largely because they wouldn't be in public collections where people could see them). But there's still a strange tug of the that location on the picture in its new home and vice versa. The 'Beethoven Frieze' also seemed out of place in the Belvedere (although it's officially in their collection). The Secession must surely feel bereft of that masterpiece created for its spaces. But these are just my own projections of homelessness.

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