Belvedere museum celebrates pioneering kinetic artist
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Curators at the Belvedere museum in Vienna, Austria, are presenting the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Erika Giovanna Klien’s work, featuring around 300 pieces.
Klien, a key figure in the Austrian Kineticism movement, explored movement in all its forms, from flying birds and rotating machines to dancing bodies, throughout her career, which spanned 1925 to 1957. The exhibition highlights her early figurative work alongside her later, more abstract pieces, including her famous 1939 painting “Abtauchender Vogel” (Descending Bird).
Klien’s artistic development began at the Kunstgewerbeschule, where she studied ornamental design under Franz Cizek, who emphasized the “rhythmic existence of things.” She broke down motion into its components and reassembled them with precision, influenced by Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism. Beyond painting, Klien worked with typography, created comic-style stories as a teacher, and even composed music for political dance theater.
Despite a challenging time in New York in the 1920s, where she exhibited alongside artists like Marcel Duchamp, Klien continued to teach and explore creative expression. The Belvedere exhibition also displays her written notes on the cognitive development of creativity, showing her dedication to research across various fields. The exhibition runs from September 18, 2026, to January 31, 2027, and includes a free audio tour and a preview of a documentary about Klien’s life.
