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An Art Collection

A cultural capital, even if only for a year, needs an art collection that reflects its standing and prestige. Thirty Austrian museums, foundations and company collections from Vienna to Lake Constance have each submitted three works. The exhibition, which cut across all styles and covered many centuries, thus provided a representative overview of the diversity of art holdings in this country.

During the exhibition’s run, the Lentos had a total of 52,150 visitors who wanted to find out just what an ideal art collection might look like as a playful, temporary experimental array. Like most collections, the makeup of this one too was characterized by happenstance, by personal preference, by financial and spatial constraints. BEST OF AUSTRIA attested to the tremendous diversity and contingency with which artworks merge into ensembles and what role the harmonizing force exerted by the museum as institution plays. It thus provoked a heated and highly contentious discussion in the media about the “quality standards” being asserted in the visual arts.


WHAT // Exhibition
WHEN // January 2 - May 10, 2009
WHERE // Lentos Art Museum Linz

IDEA / CONCEPT // Linz09, Lentos Art Museum Linz
Participating museums, foundations and firms //

Gallery