How the cider dip got into the museum

2023-09-14 11:04:00

The Linz City Museum has renewed its permanent exhibition in time for its 50th anniversary. Director Andrea Bina and her co-curator Lisa Schmidt paint a colorful, diverse, but also critical picture of the city of Linz. After the exhibition “Linz compact” opened on the ground floor before the summer, which gives a brief overview of the city’s history, the exhibition on the second floor is intended to deepen the topic, says Bina: “We want to show what Linz is, what is typical of Linz. We would like to present the city as built but also as lived.” The exhibition will open on Thursday evening at the same time as the 50th anniversary of Nordico.

For the exhibition “Linz Blick – The City in Focus” the rooms and the floor on the second floor were renovated. A breakthrough enables a tour; the ballroom was renovated and included in the exhibition. In total, the city of Linz paid 180,000 euros for this (and for the renovation on the ground floor for “Linz compact”) in an extra budget. The architecture is also striking: the objects, almost all of which come from the collection of 120,000 exhibits, are presented on racks made of pipes from the Linz company kekelit. This gives the show an industrial character that suits Linz. In the first part of the show, visitors travel through the city – quite literally: you can sit on an original Linz tram and travel from the center to Solarcity via video. The tobacco factory, the Linz industrial area, the Danube and the Linz city mountains are also visited, partly in photos, specially created videos or in pictures. “We are also confronting the difficult legacy of being the only Austrian leader in Adolf Hitler’s city,” says Bina. For example, the Aphrodite statue, a gift from Adolf Hitler to Linz, can be seen. It stood unnoticed in a temple on the Bauernberg for a long time until a student from the Linz Art University drew attention to it in an art event and sparked a discussion. There is also a separate room dedicated to Nazi history at the end of the tour.

The cider dip from ex-Lentos boss Peter Baum
Image: Herbert Schorn

What is typical of Linz? That’s what another room in the exhibition asks. There are ceramic Linzer cakes on display, a radio developed by Gustav Peichl, the Golden Nica from the Prix Ars Electronica – and the Mostdipf from OÖNachrichten. This prize is awarded annually to deserving individuals. The exhibit in the Nordico is on loan from Peter Baum, the former director of Linzer Lentos.

City tours with a trip to the OÖN promenade galleries

As a third rail, there are exhibits that can be explored using the artivive app on your cell phone. Together with the master class for communication design at the Linz Graphics HTL, animations were developed that bring marked objects to life. For example, if you place your cell phone in front of a photo of the Linz tobacco factory, you will see a number of other historical images. “We want to expand our museum digitally,” says project manager Klaudia Kreslehner. At the same time, there are also city tours that lead to important and lesser-known places. Exhibits can also be explored digitally there. Three stations lead to the OÖN Promenade Galleries, where three graffiti pieces (animated upon request) can be viewed.