Creative Destruction: Gustav Klimt, The Beethoven Frieze and the Controversy over The Freedom of Art

Munich: Prestel, 2007. Hardbound. New. Blue boards with color pictorial dustjacket. 207 pp., profusely illustrated in bw and color. A detailed look at the frieze the Viennese secessionist Gustav Klimt created for the legendary Beethoven Exhibition in 1902. The outstanding importance of that exhibition as a 'total work of art' incorporating several arts, and also the key role the frieze played in Klimt's oeuvre, are highlighted by cultural and art-historical analyses that look in particular at the controversey's public context and its continued relevance indebates over the scope of artistic freedom in public art. An extensive appendix contains a selection of key contemporary texts, an illustrated biography, and a glossary. English language edition. (Inventory #: 106390)