"Art for all times, freedom for all art" - thus, in essence, reads the motto that appears above the entrance to the Vienna Secession building - a concept that could also serve appropriately as the theme of this publication on the history of the institution on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. This book pays tribute for the first time to the Vienna Secession as the home of Art Nouveau and "Jugendstil" and as an exhibition center which has consistently pioneered the ideas and developments of modernism since the dedication of the Secession building in 1898. The most significant artists of the modern period - figures such as Matisse, Rodin, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso - exhibited their works here, along with many others whose radicalism prevented their acceptance in all but a few institutions - Moholy-Nagy, Léger, Klee, Beuys, Gilbert & George, to name but a few. Essays presenting retrospective approaches to the edifice designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich, the Beethoven frieze and the turn-of-the-century period are complemented by a general survey and look at the current and future exhibition activities of the Vereinigung bildender Künstler der Wiener Secession. Thus this publication can be regarded as a standard reference work on one of the most ambitious "projects of modernism", which, like the growth of avant-garde art at the end of the last century, exercised a marked influence on its own time. (German edition available ISBN 3-7757-0702-6)