Wolfgang Kos

Angelo Soliman was an African slave who was trained as a fashion accessory for the nobility: Serving a cup of coffee in style. Via Southern Italy, he was a servant first of Count Lobkowitz and later Liechtenstein. Privileged and limited at the same time. he was quite successful and even influential, becoming a Freemason, marrying a woman of Dutch origin and acquiring a house extra muros. Not a bad life for an African slave! Alas, the Austrian Emperor had no respect of his black skin. Despite the protestations of his daughter, Soliman's body was skinned and a taxidermised exhibit of an African wild man complete with feathers created (which the cultured servant Soliman never was) and exhibited in the natural history collection for a few years (until the new director removed the strange item from public display. He did not, however, bury the remains. A fire during the 1848 revolution destroyed Soliman's skin and purged the museum's black stain.

Both the exhibition in the Wien Museum and its catalogue marvelously use the biography of Soliman to present larger concepts of 18th century society, e.g. the less well-known north-south African slave trade (where the majority of slaves ended up in the Ottoman Empire), the role of black servants as status symbols and fashion accessories (a human specimen among the Baroque ménagerie) to fascinating details such as one had to be a citizen of Vienna to acquire property intra muros. The catalogue is exceptionally well curated, with very little overlap, good coordination among the different authors and beautifully illustrated. Highly recommended.… (mais)

The partnership between the city museums of Nagoya and Vienna has produced another excellent exhibition and a richly illustrated catalogue about the history and urban development of Nagoya , fourth largest city of Japan, and no. 22 in the world (2,1 million inhabitants in Nagoya proper, 9 million in the region). On the road between the centers of culture, Kyoto and Osaka, and power, Tokyo, Nagoya specialized in industry, a legacy sustained by the two local global players, Brother and Toyota. Today, the post-industrial city 70 % in services. Nagoya, a late bloomer has grown in leaps and bounds amid periods of large natural and war destruction. The rebuilding has made it a test case for urban planning. A grid centered on the castle was later fire-proofed by the addition of large avenues (in a rather heavy top-down approach). Given its association with Toyota, it is not surprising that it is a car-oriented city, and public transportation has only lately been reprioritized. Judging from the photographs in the catalogue and the exhibition, Nagoya is a typical Japanese city rich in concrete and jumbled architecture. The Japanese competence of compartimentalization accepts enormous ugly buildings. Quite a contrast to the rich interiors and the beautiful gardens.

The catalogue consists of a number of essays split between good primers about the history and urban development of Nagoya and average gaijin culture shock essays. Starting in 1610, the historical part misses Oda Nobunaga and the fight for the control of central Japan and thus neglects to tell the reader that the large Tokugawa garrison in Nagoya served as a lookout on rebellious Western Japan. I wish the authors had compared the development of Nagoya to the other cities. A lost chance, especially as Vienna experienced a similar growth spurt and saw extensive redevelopment.

The second part chronicles the exhibition with a large number of beautiful prints, maps and photographs of the city and its artifacts. The caption texts are often on the short side.… (mais)