Friederike Mayröcker was one of the most unconventional poets in the period since 1945 and would have celebrated her one hundredth birthday on 20 December 2024. She wanted to live to be two hundred years old, so rich in possible experiences did the world seem to her. Her curiosity never waned, and she continued to the end to work on her award-winning œuvre, which comprises over 120 books, full of references to music, the visual arts, philosophy and poetry. With their magic, imagery and poetic radicalism, her writings had a major influence on literature in the German language.
The starting point of the exhibition is Friederike Mayröcker’s legendary Viennese writing studio, a universe of handwritten notes at the transition to the digital age: a profusion of notes, manuscripts, books, correspondence, works of art and everyday objects piled up in heaps, under which the furniture and the studio’s inventory disappeared more and more: ”not just what’s written but existence, too, must be poetic”. The extensive exhibition offers insights into this legacy that transcends all dimensions.
It shows the close connection between her life and her writings through numerous manuscripts, letters, life documents and photographs made public for the first time. Between the first publication, the poem “an meinem Morgenfenster” (at my morning window) in 1946 and Mayröcker’s last book “da ich morgens und moosgrün. Ans Fenster trete” (as mornings and moss green I. Step to the window) (2020), an œuvre unfolds that bears witness to an ever-increasing poetic intensity. From her childhood experiences in the paradise garden in the Weinviertel region of Lower Austria to the radical processing of her biography and her experience of the world in her last books, the exhibition enables the visitor to discover the stages of Friederike Mayröcker’s writing journey.
Light is cast on the musical and artistic influences, as well as on Mayröcker’s drawings and children’s books. A virtual reality installation invites visitors to immerse themselves in the poet’s writing spaces. Many other audio and film documents provide new insights into her life and work.
Curated by Bernhard Fetz and Katharina Manojlovic
The book accompanying the exhibition, published by Zsolnay Verlag, can be purchased for EUR 35.- at the Literature Museum service desk or in bookshops.
The use of the image material provided in the context of reporting on the Austrian National Library is free of charge. Copyright, unless otherwise stated: Austrian National Library.
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Elke Koch
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elke.koch[at]onb.ac.at
