Arts & Entertainment

Exhibition Alert: Klimt Frieze on show in Liverpool

By team ⋅ March 29, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Guardian, 4 March

A full-scale recreation of the Beethoven Frieze, the huge 34 metre long installation by Gustav Klimt, which can only be seen in Vienna, is to be one of the highlights of the first comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work in the UK.
Tate Liverpool announced on 3 March that the frieze copy, made in 1984 and rarely loaned, will travel to the city for this summer’s Klimt exhibition, which is expected to be one of the biggest crowd pullers among the European capital of culture events.

The actual frieze, 34 metres long and two metres high was inspired by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was created by Klimt in 1902 as a ‘total work of art’, celebrating a unification of different art forms including painting , sculpture, architecture, poetry and music. The original plan was to destroy it after the exhibition.

Christopher Grunenberg, director of the Tate Liverpool, said that the Frieze was ‘an icon of 20th century art’. The Frieze is a highlight in an exhibition of 270 Klimt-related works, including 26 paintings and 29 drawings.
Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900, May 30-August 31, Tate Liverpool.