The University of Arts Linz is 50 – and celebrated with a ceremony, the exhibition BestOFF and more. 

 

The anniversary was celebrated with all institutes and the International Research Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Arts Linz in Vienna as well as the city's art and culture scene - under the year-round motto "radical collective!" 

 

With a robot arm from the Creative Robotics Laboratory, visitors to the ceremony were able to immortalize themselves analogously and digitally in the guest book of the University of Arts Linz. In the courtyard of the university location Domgasse, students from the textile·art·design department made inflatable figures dance. And in the Audimax, the artistic director of the Bruckner Orchestra himself provided virtuosic interventions with a four-piece ensemble. 

 

These are just three highlights that the University of Arts Linz presented on Thursday, October 12th from 10:00 a.m. as part of the ceremony for its 50th anniversary. It has been 50 years since the art school in the city of Linz, founded in 1947, was granted university status - and since then it has seen itself as an intellectual and practical place that builds on the Bauhaus ideas of the 1920s and 1930s. 

 

In detail, the “University of Art and Design Linz” was constituted by a federal law on May 9, 1973, which became effective through publication in Federal Law Gazette No. 251 of the same year. Under founding rector Alfons Ortner, the master classes “Painting and Graphics”, “Commercial Graphics”, “Writing and Book Design”, “Interior Design”, “Forming”, “Ceramics”, “Plastic Design – Metal” were created (incidentally, these were under the direction of later rector Helmuth Gsöllpointner, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday), “Plastic Design – Sculpture” and the “Basic Class”. 

 

Today's institutes and departments, centers and co-labs see themselves as artistic-critical experimental workshops for students. The range of courses includes art, culture, design and media in all variations. The University of Arts Linz now has around 1,500 students who come from around 60 countries. The graduates are in demand in the creative industries as well as in industrial companies, in research institutions as well as in start-ups. There are also more than 40 professors and 450 artistic-scientific staff members. 

 

There are also other anniversaries coming up in this anniversary year: the International Research Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Arts Linz in Vienna (ifk) is celebrating 30 years of existence. As the former long-time director of the ifk, Thomas Macho, still one of the most important cultural philosophers of today, gave the 50th anniversary lecture entitled “Cultures of Translation”. 

 

VALIE EXPORT appeared as another guest of honor - the exceptional artist in media and performance as well as a filmmaker has particularly close ties to the art university; she has been an honorary doctor since 2009 and an honorary member since the previous year. 

 

There were also many musical performances and interventions as well as artistic contributions at the ceremony: curated by Norbert Trawöger, the artistic director of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the composer Florian Sighartner, the percussionist András Dés, the trumpeter Alexander Wladigeroff, the cellist Carles Muñoz Camarero and Florian played Sighartner as a violinist. 

 

With the start of the official celebrations with personalities from politics and culture - in keeping with the anniversary motto "radical collective!" - the interested public was also involved: That evening at 6:00 p.m. at the University of Arts Linz, Hauptplatz 6, the opening act for the BestOFF, the students' big annual exhibition. 

 

Rector Brigitte Hütter on the anniversary: “For 50 years, exchange, reflection and diversity have been a priority for teachers and students in our studios and workspaces at the University of Arts Linz. In the coming years we will focus on sustainability - from fashion design to building culture to industrial design and robotics. In the spirit of a critical examination of the future, we also want to expand the artistic subjects - with performance art, media art, art in public spaces and in connection with plastic & environment. When it comes to digital technologies, we always consider the interaction between humans and machines to be our premise, and we particularly see teacher training as a social mission. In this spirit, we will continue to act as a “radical collective!”