The Arnulf Rainer Museum

'The Arnulf Rainer Museum unites an architectural jewel with the work of the internationally acclaimed contemporary artist.

The clearly delineated structure of the building of the Frauenbad from 1821 – which is located on the site of the former Frauenkriche – is based on a design by Charles de Moreau, one of the leading architects of French classicism. After bathing stopped at the site in 1973 the building changed use, to become a national exhibition centre. The opening exhibition in autumn 1977 was an Arnulf Rainer retrospective.

In 2006 the decision was made to dedicate the exhibition centre as a museum to Arnulf Rainer, who was born in Baden.'

'Rainer, born in 1929 in Baden, has an importance to art history that is uncontested. He is the founder of Art Informel in Austria, and his ‘overpaintings’, developed in the 1950s, made his name well beyond Austria's borders, and cemented his fame among fellow international artists.'

'In 1953 in Vienna he met a priest named Monsignore Otto Mauer, who later founded the Gallerie St. Stephan, which became a meeting place for the Austrian avant-garde.'

'In 2004 the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Münster granted him an honorary doctorate. In 2006 he received an honorary doctorate in theology from the Katholisch-Theologische Privatuniversität Linz.'

'Crosses and crucifixions are a thread that runs through all of Arnulf Rainer's work, not as a central theme, but with a constant presence that could manifest at any time, the incessant struggle towards an omnipresent form ...

Arnulf Rainer's crosses and crucifixions are connected to the elementary sensuality of the act of painting, which they attempt to perpetuate. The dialogue between picture and space, between colour and symbol, between the cross and the spirituality exuded by the painting triggers a range of associations ...

The crosses here in the museum are traces of a creative process lasting more than half a century. And so it's not the recipient of two honorary doctorates, but the painter, who thought about the conditions and effects of his paintings when he said to P. Friedhelm Mennekes, “The cross can convey the meaning.”'

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