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ENVIRONMENT

Vienna museum tilts paintings to illustrate climate change threat

Gustav Klimt's well-known Attersee lake painting, among other works of art, tilted by Vienna's Leopold Museum to draw attention to how unchecked climate change could affect landscapes.

Published: 22 March 2023 17:00 CET
Vienna museum tilts paintings to illustrate climate change threat
The exhibition placard hangs next to the stairs of the Leopold Museum in Vienna, on March 22, 2023. (Photo by JOE KLAMAR / AFP)

Gustav Klimt’s well-known Attersee lake painting tilted by two degrees, Egon Schiele’s painting of a tree in late autumn rotated by five degrees. As part of the initiative “A Few Degrees More”, Vienna’s Leopold Museum has tilted 15 paintings by the number of degrees unchecked climate change could affect the landscapes depicted.

The initiative, launched on Wednesday, comes after climate activists poured black liquid over a glass screen protecting a Klimt piece at the museum. “We want to contribute to raise awareness of the dramatic consequences of the climate crisis,” museum director Hans-Peter Wipplinger said.

Developed together with the research network Climate Change Center Austria, the action runs until late June.

Wipplinger dismissed the November “attack” — one of a string of similar protests by activists in London, Rome and other cities to highlight the climate emergency — as “absolutely the wrong way” to raise awareness.

READ ALSO: Is Austria doing enough to protect children from the climate crisis?

Following the protest, the museum put more works behind glass screens, increased watches and introduced stricter controls at the entrance, he said. “But in the end, we can’t exclude this” from happening again, Wipplinger said, regretting the increased costs incurred by the measures — and the higher insurance premiums.

Sofie Skoven, an 18-year-old student from Denmark visiting Vienna with her class, said the sight of the tilted paintings “of beautiful places” made her sad.

“It makes you want to do something about it — it reminds you of what’s going to be lost,” she told AFP.

Another visitor, Joachim Burdack, was less impressed. “I think it trivialises climate change,” the 71-year-old German retiree told AFP. 

READ ALSO: What are the biggest threats facing Austria this year?

It was too easy to get used to the tilted works, he added.

The Leopold Museum, with its 6,000 artworks, houses one of the world’s most important collections of Austrian art, focusing on the second half of the nineteenth century and subsequent Modernism.

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WEATHER

After mini tornado and floods should Austria expect a summer of extremes?

Extreme weather events have become more common and more dangerous worldwide. This week Austria experienced some of its own extreme weather with thunderstorms and even a 'small' tornado hitting the country.

Published: 22 May 2024 17:27 CEST
After mini tornado and floods should Austria expect a summer of extremes?

Heavy rainfall led to flooded cellars and muddy roads in Lower Austria on Tuesday afternoon.

In Styria, Graz residents recorded what seemed to be a tornado in the city (the head of the Styrian meteorological agency later confirmed a “small” tornado there), with large amounts of rainfall causing havoc.

Austria’s meteorological institute Geosphere Austria had already warned of thunderstorms, some of them heavy, moving north through the country—an alert that included the possibility of landslides and flooding. 

The warnings have been plentiful. Recently, experts alerted that global warming would make extreme weather events much more frequent and stronger, as The Local reported.

Summers, in particular, could see torrential downpours, hail storms as well as heat waves. 

Four heatwaves occurred in 2023, two of which lasted an unusually long time, lasting up to 18 days (July) and 16 days (August).

READ ALSO: How to protect yourself during storm season in Austria

So what about this summer?

There is nothing to indicate that people in Austria will have some relief this summer.

In fact, it has been a warmer than average year so far, with record temperatures throughout. According to Geosphere Austria, the recent winter was one of the two warmest on record.

February followed the trend, and it was the hottest in Austrian history. Parts of Austria also saw record heat in March, while there was “summer in April” in the Alpine country. GeoSphere Austria expects the country to be heading towards a hotter summer season also in 2024. 

Already in June, the probability of above-average temperatures is 60 percent.

In July, above-average temperatures will occur in about 60 percent of the cases. The probability of average temperatures is 20 percent, the same as the chance of below-average temperatures. 

The probability of above-average temperatures in August is just under 80 percent. Average temperatures occur in about a quarter of the cases, and the likelihood of below-average temperatures is less than 10 percent.

READ ALSO: What is Austria’s official emergency-warning phone app and do I need it?

The institute does point out that a seasonal forecast is not an exact forecast in the sense of a 3-day overview but a “rough estimate of the average temperatures conditions in the Eastern Alps”. 

It may seem counterintuitive to think that Austria could be heading for a summer of drought and heavy rains. Still, experts explain that the hotter temperatures make extreme events more likely.

And Austria is more affected by warming than the global average, mainly because it is located in the middle of the continent, and land masses warm up faster than oceans. 

Because of that, the Alpine Republic has already been 2C warmer on average over the last 30 years, almost twice as much as the global temperature increase compared to pre-industrial times.

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