Hidden Treasures

Beyond the main site on the city limits, the Belvedere maintains additional storage locations—including an underground depot (its address undisclosed for security reasons) and a facility dedicated to the Fritz Wotruba estate at the Belvedere 21. Visitors can peer into this space through the glass door of the adjacent study hall on the museum’s bottom floor.

Three years ago, the Belvedere assumed stewardship of the Wotruba estate—500 carved or modeled sculptures which even in this storage setting—with its black-and-red shelving—offer an impressive picture of the artist’s oeuvre. Several large plaster figures were reassembled at the request of curator Gabriele Stöger-Spevak, the custodian of the estate. “Visibility is a major concern for me—including for a broad public,” she emphasizes, pointing to guided tours (for example during Belvedere events) and the option of arranging individual appointments—not only for specialists or artists, but for anyone interested. 

Since the depot and the estate are combined in the Wotruba holdings, traditional storage work and scholarly research go hand in hand. Alongside ongoing detailed indexing of his oeuvre, preparations are underway for an exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of Wotruba’s death in 2025, situating the artist within the context of international sculpture between 1945 and 1975. Contrary to his reputation as a strictly Austrian artist, Wotruba was in fact well connected internationally: “we want to restore that sense of internationalism to him,” the curator explains.

This „chaotic storage system”—an unflattering technical term—is nonetheless the most practical approach, as Claudia Baumann and her team very well know. They oversee yet another storage site under the Belvedere umbrella. In 2012, the extensive holdings of the Federal Artothek—more than 38,000 artworks acquired since 1948 through federal art funding—came under their administrative care, including early works by Maria Lassnig and Kiki Kogelnik.

To accommodate them, the team moved into a specially adapted deep-storage facility beneath the Belvedere 21. Conditions are excellent—though one drawback remains: the team works entirely under artificial light. Daylight lamps, originally acquired for conservation work—a major focus of the department—help compensate for the absence of natural light. The Artothek lends works to all non-profit federal institutions—universities, ministries, embassies, and more. Any damage is documented immediately upon return and repaired either internally or externally, depending on its extent. Minor dents and scratched frames are to be expected: “we’re not lending within a museum context,” Baumann notes. For corridor displays, the team now lends only glazed works to prevent people with bags or ring binders from brushing against the pictures.

A significant part of their work focuses on newly acquired pieces—works by contemporary artists living in Austria. To fulfill their preservation mandate, conservators document, for instance, the materials used in each work. Contemporary art can be challenging, Baumann explains, because of the wide variety of media involved. She points to a large work made of silver threads by Austrian-Swedish artist, Elisabeth Kihlström. These threads will oxidize over time as Kihlström intended, which is then noted accordingly.