Quotes on pn

See also Pro Peter Noever


Jenny Holzer

“I think Noever has a point.”
(New York, 2001)

Wolf D. Prix

“Today’s museums are neither golden cages, nor stages for viewing-figure maniacs. Rather, they are irreplaceable strongholds of a culture that prevents the nightmare of a world of half-witted docusoap celebs from becoming real.
It is the task of society, and hence politics, to protect the undiscovered, the unexplored, the foreign and minorital. That means, to support museums that do not procure show acts for the express-yourself society, but understand themselves as aesthetic research centers of future forms of society.
MAK O MUERTE, THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.”

Paul Virilio

With you, Peter Noever, resistance begins! Long live life!
(Paris, 2001)

Sergej Bugaev Afrika

“Under your leadership, the MAK somehow created a unique and alive model of a museum as once proposed by Malevich (GINHUK): to have a classical permanent collection and an active program with living artists from all over the world at the same time is a great opportunity for artists and the public, but it is also a very difficult situation for the museum.
Peter, I respect your uncompromising position regarding any forms of misunderstanding and brutality, and I will always support your protests against forces which constantly try to lower the social, therapeutic, and cultural importance of museums.”
(Saint Petersburg, 2001)

Freddie Z. Jellinek

“Let’s be realistic; let’s try the impossible.” (Che Guevara)

James Wines / SITE

There are very few museums of history that are consistently about the future. Peter Noever’s leadership at the MAK has achieved precisely this kind of miracle. Without forfeiting a respect for the past, MAK has anticipated tomorrow.

Zaha Hadid

Avantgarde in Vienna. I am a longstanding admirer of Peter Noever. He is a great museum director with an ideological integrity like nobody else. His shows are fantastic. His charisma is addictive. It is quite amazing how he transformed a sleepy applied arts museum into an exciting place for avant-garde art/design events. For me Vienna is unthinkable without Peter Noever’s MAK. Also: I am grateful for his tremendous support of my work over many years and his loyalty and warmth as a friend.

Toshio Hara

Under the extraordinary leadership of Peter Noever, the museum was bursting with energy, and even now, as the CAT – Contemporary Art Tower project demonstrates, it stands as a source of inspiration and as an example of what the spirit of freedom, challenge, and creativity can do to society.

Thom Mayne

Art in progress. MAK has occupied a unique and valuable space as international host for discourse between the arts and architecture.

Otto Muehl

Peter Noever is not a provincial Austrian. He is courageous, ruthless as far as ideas are concerned. One notices his advertising, the invitations to exhibitions and events sent out by the MAK. He makes interesting, high level, intellectual art parties. Even his name says a lot, Peter Noever. That isn’t a name for me any more, it is a brand name, “Peter is the new Austrian.” If I ever had money he would participate in designing the building of my institute of the 21st century. There would be a café that will be called “Café Noever”.

Stefan Sagmeister

Peter Noever is a pain in the ass and a joy in the heart.

David Sarkisyan

Experimenting with the future. Some factors are rapidly changing the modern world – the revolution in information technology, globalization and the loss of reference points for development are among them. Objectively speaking, all this results in a perceptible amplification of the role and influence of museums (it is interesting that the great Russian philosopher and visionary Nikolay Fedorov predicted this already at the end of the 19th century). From being places where refined people once admired the past, museums are turning into places where energetic people experiment with the future. Certainly MAK is one of the global leaders in this transition. Here in Moscow, MUAR carefully watches every movement of Peter Noever because the MAK undoubtedly gives us very inspiring examples for becoming actively involved in the stormy current of life.

Franz West

Peter Noever, a vociferous entertainer of guests, surfs high standards, but only to see them break under him, carefully severing the spirit from the flesh.

Julia Michalska

During his 25 years as director, Noever transformed Mak into a world-class museum, working with leading artists such as the late Donald Judd to reinstall the decorative art collection. He also opened a branch in Los Angeles at the Schindler House.
(The Art Newspaper 11/2013, London)

Bazon Brock

“Briefly, and parallel to the request made by Boris Groys, who argues very differently, I would like to say that museums also fulfill their economic duty as moral institutions. Only an ethical act with which we justify our own assumptions of the future can affirm an aesthetic act that translates virtual, intrapsychological spheres of thought into writing if we subject ourselves or others either directly or indirectly to these assumptions.
All else is garbage which, particularly when it radiates, insists on an adulation that was once the prerogative of gods. Even in this sense, the significance of museums as the garbage containers of cultures remains unparalleled. Their greatest asset is the manifestation of constancy contained within them. A halflife period of 15.000 years of the cathedrals of garbage amounts to a generation of time for the future that surpasses the entire cultural past of humanity.
Motto: We (s)weep for you.”

Iké Udé

Needless to say, contemporary art is all the more important, pertinent, and indispensable. Hence a museum with the renowned reputation and integrity of the MAK under the inimitable auspices of Peter Noever cannot afford to be compromised by any financial forces regardless of their excuses, however intended, phrased, or sung.

Hans Weigand

“There are only three fields that Austria is acceptably good in: skiing, tourism, and art. In the latter, the MAK has played a leading role in the past fifteen years. It should be logical, even to the dumbest politicians, not to start economizing here, which would be the wrong place, and to paralyze such an important institution by cutting back on subsidies (otherwise, one would have to assume that this government pursues a policy of annihilation). No government members would ever dare to think of putting the Austrian skiing team out of action, in the heyday of its success, by a subsidy cutback.”

Erwin Wurm

Good museums are controversial. Good museums always bear the signature of one person, whose passions and individuality makes them rise above the mass of “conformist” institutions that simply follow an insipid, obligatory program.
Good museums are controversial, difficult and they communicate visions – the visions of artists and curators.
Peter Noever has visions, and he possesses the energy and the humor to implement them without being distracted from his path by petty politics. He has made the MAK what it is today: an internationally respected house.

Magdalena Jetelova

Peter Noever’s methods have an extremely inspirational effect on me and I find that his personal engagement is a challenge and confirmation of artistic intention.

Ilya Kabakov

Who is the artist of the future? To make a “Museum of Installations” inside the huge bomb shelter is a great idea!

Elke Krystufek

Peter Noever has the willingness to inscribe his creativity within new perspectives, as a necessary step of the mediation. He copes with the task to decipher differently the reality, to imagine other visibilities for the present and to bring them awareness and larger interpretations. It is the complicated representation of a country going through continuous changes.
For Noever, the human element, the artist himself, is a determining presence. Feelings and fears of the male character combine with the chaotic and dubious urban landscape. It creates the oscillating perception of the inside/outside relationship. The immobilized space and time reflect a context, which is first the daily one facing the artist, then the paradoxical view of the permanence developed with the temporary. His building sites are the translation of the paradigm of the transitory.

Ulrike Lienbacher

I also happen to share Peter Noever’s opinion that Vienna needs a museum of contemporary art – not just a storage for objects, but first and foremost a center for artistic production.

Konstantin Skotnikow

It appears that Peter Noever is building the tower of Babel on contemporary arts in Arenbergpark with efforts of multilingual builders so that it can be seen from Siberia how its top will soon hit the intimate body of God.

Kiki Smith

Source of inspiration. The MAK is a museum that has had a profound effect on me as an artist and art viewer.

Hiro Yamagata

From another planet. Peter Noever is a man who has no conscience. A man who didn’t come from this world; he came from another planet far, far away.
We all don’t know what he is going to do at every angle, which is quite alien.
That really makes me think and feel something!