5 Exhibition and Stage as Gesamtkunstwerk

Well into the twentieth century, the opera and theater stage remained the preferred venue for the performance of artistic concepts that work with a synthesis of sound, music, text, and performance. However, around 1900 there were already trends in the visual arts to stage the exhibition space designed by artists as a Gesamtkunstwerk, for example within the scope of a group exhibition by the Viennese Secession in 1902, the focus of which was Max Klinger’s (1857–1920) sculpture Beethoven.^[24] The missionary urge to convince the masses of his own artistic-religious vision tempted the theosophically influenced Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) to develop monumental, utopian architectural concepts. A pioneer of atonal music, he designed a temple-like hemisphere in India in which thousands of people were to be led to salvation by the performance of his (unfinished) piece Mysterium. Scriabin developed a messianic notion of collective ecstasy: All elements are mixed, but all that can be is there. It exudes colors, feelings, and dreams.^[25]