Gescheiterte 

Karl Wiener created this unsettling drawing, titled “Gescheiterte” – “Failed” - with ink on paper. Wiener, born in Vienna in 1901, belonged to a generation that lived through the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the rise of antisemitism, and the trauma of two world wars. In this work, the artist leaves much open to interpretation; the faces of the figures are lined with worry and their shoulders slump with defeat. The three anonymous figures stand together in a corner, yet they don't touch or connect. In 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. Wiener, who was Jewish, was arrested and deported. Although he survived internment in concentration camps, his life was irrevocably marked by this experience. Looking at this drawing, we can imagine it is Wiener’s visceral response to a society collapsing around him. We are left with the emotional weight of unspoken anxieties and the sense of an inescapable fate.