As is already the tradition during spring and summer time, Innsbruck’s museums and exhibition venues will put on a vast number of special exhibitions, focusing this year on courtly weddings and centennial anniversaries.

In the run up to the 2010 Ambras Castle summer exhibition celebrating Italian nights , there is still plenty of time for one or the other festivity, including an Easter Exhibition that will be on display from 26 March until 31 May 2010. Dedicated to the marriage of Archduke Ferdinand II to his second wife, Anna Catarina Gonzaga of Mantua, it documents a splendid feast conceived as a veritable ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, as a synthesis of architecture, painting, sculpture, dance, jousting tournaments, music and fireworks. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a recently restored pictorial with priceless copper engravings documenting the wedding festivities, alongside numerous rare objects bearing witness to the Habsburg festival culture.

From 24 June until 17 October 2010, the focus of attention will again return to the Habsburg dynasty exploring the fact that Austrian archduchesses Eleonore, Barbara and Johanna – all three of them daughters of Ferdinand I (1503-1564) and Princess Anna Jagiello of Hungary (1503-1547) - were married to Italian noblemen from Mantua, Ferrara and Florence, some of the most prosperous European cities at the time. At the special exhibition: ‘Nozze italiane. Austrian archduchesses in 16^th-century Italy’, visitors can not only take a closer look at the political, economical and cultural aspects of the era but also familiarize themselves with the role that women of noble descent played in the Habsburg marriage policy. Last, but not least, the exhibition contains an impressive array of historical documents and works of art that emphasize the era’s remarkable cultural achievements, both in Italy and Europe as a whole. Paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Alessandro Allori, Giovanni Bizzelli, Giambologna, Peter Paul Rubens and others will be on display, sourced from the castle’s own collections, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien as well as various other museums, archives and libraries located in Innsbruck and Italy.

The ‘Tiroler Landesmuseen’, Innsbruck’s three state museums, however, take a somewhat different approach, with summer exhibitions at the Ferdinandeum, Zeughaus (armoury) and Volkskunstmuseum (Tyrolean Folk Art Museum) focusing on events and artists not so far removed in time. The Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum will show special displays to mark the 100^th anniversary of two Tyrolean fixtures: Dedicated to ‘Der Brenner’ - a literary journal published by Ludwig von Ficker until 1954 - the exhibition ‘Zeitmesser’: 100 Jahre Brenner’ unravels the journal’s history with the aid of paintings by Oskar Kokoschka and Max von Esterle, as well as autographs, draft manuscripts, etc. From 18 June until 31 October 2010, the Ferdinandeum hosts the exhibition ‘Max Weiler – das öffentliche Werk‘, in honour of the exceptional body of work of the region’s most outstanding painter of the 20^th century. To mark the artist’s 100^th anniversary the Ferdinandeum provides insights into works that Weiler was commissioned to create for Innsbruck’s public spaces, among them his once controversial paintings at Theresienkirche located on Hungerburg, the frescoes inside Innsbruck’s main railway station and the murals adorning the Innsbruck Casino.

At the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum (Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum) the focus of this year’s summer exhibition is not so much on the arts but on rather more elementary sensations: From 27 May until 31 October 2010 the manifold aspects of physical and emotional pain will be explored, investigating the various aspects of suffering caused by religious beliefs, such as in the Passion of the Christ, or more profanely - the pain that today’s society has come to accept in the name of beauty.

Anyone who may find this exhibition a somewhat painful experience and looking for a little diversion, should head straight for the Zeughaus where from 7 May until 3 October 2010 the exhibition ‘Everything in its place’ will be on show, an entertaining display based on the rather pragmatic topic how the current methods of measuring and calculating have developed throughout history. The exhibition looks into the development of today’s standardized counting methods, measurements and monetary systems - and how these changes have come to influence our daily lives. The exhibition provides ‘immeasurable’ insights into the time-consuming processes that have lead to our current system of counting and calculating.

Information: Kunsthistorisches Museum Schloss Ambras, tel. +43-1-52524-745, info.ambras@khm.at, www.khm.at/ambras, opening hours: Tue-Sun, 10am-6pm;

Tiroler Landesmuseen, Ferdinandeum, www.tiroler-landesmuseen.at  ,

tel. +43-512-59489, fax +43-512-59489-109, sekretariat@tiroler-landesmuseen.at,

opening hours: daily 10am-5pm,

Tiroler Volkskunstmuseum, tel. +43-512-59489-510, fax +43-512-59489-520, volkskunstmuseum@tiroler-landesmuseen.at, opening hours: Mon-Sun, 10am-6pm;

Museum im Zeughaus, tel. +43-512-59489-318, zeughaus@tiroler-landesmuseen.at, opening hours: Tue-Sun 10am-6pm.