Belvedere Palace and Ai Wei Wei

The Belvedere Palace in Vienna is used as a major art gallery housing works such as Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss' and 'Judith and Holofernes' as well as Jacques Louis David's 'Napoleon Crossing the Alps'. It also has many examples of art by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, the German Expressionists, Austrian and German modern artists, German Romanticism and Neoclassism. All works are displayed in highly ornate, beautiful rooms with loads of gold paint and trompe l'oeil ceiling paintings. The palace gardens are formally designed around a large pool in the front and fountains and gardens in the back with another palace building at the rear. It is called Lower Belvedere and is an art gallery. The main museum is called Upper Belvedere.

A very windy day

In the room next to Klimt's Kiss is a Selfie Moment where you can stand in front of a large print of the work and take a photo - no photos can be taken in the gallery. Why they display a print with a gloss finish in a room with lots of light is beyond me, so every photo has glare on the print.

Mobile phones can be used very stealthily in the gallery

A snowman sculpture was in the lower gardens

Gardens of the Belvedere Palace

Rebecca and I sat in the Belvedere Palace Cafe and tasted Apple Streudel and Viennese Cheesecake

Ai Wei Wei at the Belvedere

During the summer months, Chinese contemporary artist Ai Wei Wei has a major installation at the palace and other venues in Vienna. His Translocation-Transformation installation in the palace included three different sections - an installation in the pool, sculptures surrounding the pool and inside the stairwell of the palace. He has investigated the concepts of expulsion, migration and deliberate relocation. The animal heads that surround the pool, were based on the 12 animal heads from the Chinese zodiac. Ai Wei Wei has displayed them like 18th Century bronze figures from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing that existed until 1860 when British and French soldiers destroyed the site during the Opium Wars and the original animal heads were looted. Seven of the heads have been returned to China while the others are still missing. Ai Wei Wei represents the missing sculptures by an empty concrete circular slab.

Ai Wei Wei's other installation in the pool represents 201 lotus flowers, each composed of five life vests to form a calligraphic F. It is a site specific work made for the palace's pool, and is based on the plight of refugees and symbolises their uncertain fate. The lotus flower symbolises purity and longevity.

Ai Wei Wei also included sculptures in the palace's main stairwell: