Left: Carl Auböck II, newspaper rack with fabric covering by Mara Uckunowa-Auböck, 1938 Carl Auböck archive© MAK/Christian MendezFor over a century, the Auböck family has stood at the forefront of Austrian design, spearheading the Wiener Werkstätte movement and creating some, including brass candlesticks, elegant glass and leather carafes and hand-shaped paperweights.
MAK Exhibition View, 2024 ICONIC AUBÖCK: A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design Carl Auböck II, side basket, 1950, Carl Auböck archive Vienna; Carl Auböck II, umbrella stand, 1936, Loher collection Central Room MAK Design Lab © MAK/Christian MendezAuböck II, a Bauhaus student mentored by painter and art theoretician Johannes Itten, was interested in the form-giving qualities of line and movement, and the concept of the objet trouvé.
MAK Exhibition View, 2024 ICONIC AUBÖCK: A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design Central Room MAK Design Lab © MAK/Christian MendezCurated by Bärbel Vischer and including a selection of exceptional standing and table lamps from the 1950s, the MAK exhibition explores this surrealist slant, highlighting Auböck II’s taste for ‘irreconcilable combinations, abstract compositions, and visual jokes’ that ‘often hide – in a tongue-in-cheek way – their real purpose from both...
MAK Exhibition View, 2024 ICONIC AUBÖCK: A Workshop Shapes Austria’s Concept of Design Carl Auböck II, magazine rack, 1950, Loher collection; Carl Auböck II, magazine rack, 1951, Carl Auböck archive Vienna Central Room MAK Design Lab © MAK/Christian MendezThe MAK also presents for the first time works by Carl Auböck II’s wife, the sculptor and textile artist Mara Uckunowa, whom he met at the Bauhaus.