Irene Andessner: „Art Protectors“
Tableaux vivants and photographs inspired by Jan de Bray’s regent portraits from 1667
In the run-up to the exhibition „A GOLDEN AGE. Dutch Group Portraits from the Amsterdams Historisch Museum“ the Austrian performance artist, Irene Andesser, staged a tableau vivant in two parts at the Kunsthistorisches Museum after the regent portraits by a Haarlem master.
In the seventeenth century, regent portraits marked the end of the monopoly enjoyed by secular and ecclesiastical princes as the sole patrons of the arts. Now, leading members of the bourgeousie also commissioned artists and owned artworks; this created a free market for paintings and sculptures. In her tableaux vivants „Art Protectors“ Irene Andesser transposes this historic change as an analogy for our time, which sees more and more private collectors replacing government- or public institutions as buyers and enablers of artistic production.
Among the participants of the tableaux vivants were Sabine Haag, director-general of the KHM, her deputy, Karl Schuetz, and a number of Austrian gallery owners and collectors. As sitters they are both protagonists and protectors in the sense of collectors, gallery owners and protectors of the visual arts.
Two group portraits, a pair of male/female companion pieces painted by Jan de Bray from Haarlem in 1667, served as her inspiration. Irene Andesser staged contemporary versions of the historical portraits and had the photographs enlarged to fit their models in size.
The participants in the tableaux vivants were Karl Rimmer, Elisabeth Rimmer, Jacinta Maria Mössenboeck, Irene Andessner, Margot Fuchs, Sabine Haag, Karl Schuetz, Heinz J. Angerlehner, and Roman Fuchs.
