The exhibition ‘Hidden Modernism. The Fascination of the Occult around 1900’ at the Leopold Museum shows for the first time how artists, philosophers and reform movements sought to expand the boundaries of the visible and how criticism of materialism, the search for new spiritual paths and the fascination with the beyond shaped art, philosophy and society.

Around 1900, Vienna looked beyond the horizon of rationality and experienced a heyday of contrasts: while the city was shaped by industrialisation and scientific progress, many sought spiritual alternatives. Theosophy, spiritualism and life reform movements shaped the intellectual climate and found their way into art and culture.

Vienna and the longing for the invisible

Vegetarian get-togethers, theosophical circles, and séances in bourgeois salons—around 1900, Vienna was a breeding ground for alternative ways of living and thinking. Reform movements swapped corsets for loose-fitting smocks, and spiritual ideas were linked to social and political visions of an ‘ethical revolution.’

The exhibition ‘Hidden Modernism’ at the Leopold Museum is not only a journey into the fin de siècle era, but also a critical mirror for our own time. The desire at that time for meaning, for wholeness, for alternatives to the pure belief in progress and the criticism of materialism continue to have an impact on society today.

With impressive works by Ferdinand Hodler, Arnold Schönberg, Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, the exhibition invites visitors to let their gaze wander into infinity.

Audio guide to the exhibition “Hidden Modernism. The Fascination of the Occult around 1900’” at the Leopold Museum on your smartphone

You can also enjoy the exhibition on your smartphone: With the Hearonymus app and the audio guide “Hidden Modernism. The Fascination of the Occult around 1900’”, your smartphone becomes an interactive guide to the exhibition. In 21 chapters, the audio guide leads you through selected exhibits as an acoustic key to a time full of contrasts, whose quiet tones often say more than loud slogans.

The app and audio guide can be downloaded to your smartphone in just a few clicks. For €4.99, the guide can be listened to indefinitely and without an internet connection. Whether at home or directly on site. The audio guide “Hidden Modernism. The Fascination of the Occult around 1900’” can be listened to anywhere, as often as you like. The Hearonymus app is available free of charge in the App Store and Google Play Store.

Article image: Ferdinand Hodler, Blick ins Unendliche III, 1903/04; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne. Erworben 1994; Foto: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne
Article banner: Gusto Gräser, Der Liebe Macht, 1898/99; Monte Verità Museum Complex, Casa Anatta, Ascona; Foto: Monte Verità Museum Complex, Casa Anatta, Ascona/Matteo Taddei