Art at VERBUND/Presentation of a collection

In the past decades, the then separate VERBUND companies purchased works of art, and today the Group owns a collection of more than 1,000 works.

A research project on the central registration and documentation and the art-historical consolidation of Sammlung VERBUND (the VERBUND Collection) was initiated in cooperation with the Art History Institute of the University of Vienna In the year 2000. After the hydropower segments of the formerly separate companies of VERBUND had been bundled into VERBUND-Austrian Hydro Power AG (AHP), AHP worked out new concepts and ideas in a follow-up project on a sustainable use of these works of art.

The collection is made up of three main areas that are based not least on the group’s history - the former division into separate companies. The prints collected by the former Draukraft company are the centrepiece: this collection of more than 400 works of art presents an overview of the art in the regions Carinthia, Slovenia and Friuli - Julian Venetia. Whereas Draukraft focused on the graphic arts in the Alpine-Adriatic region, Tauernkraft and Donaukraft, two other former separate companies of the VERBUND Group, concentrated mainly on works of art representing alpine storage power stations and run-of-river power stations.

The sites of the important VERBUND power plant projects had attracted numerous artists as early as in the 1950s. The imposing dams and the fascinating engineering of power plants still have a magical attraction for many artists even today. With a picture series created by the Austrian photo artist Lukas Maximilian Hüller in several parts, VERBUND-Austrian Hydro Power AG (AHP) added a third main area to its collection in the last few years.

Presenting a selection of works from each of the three main areas a catalogue in three parts offers a representative overview of Sammlung VERBUND, the VERBUND art collection, which comprises more than 1000 works of art.