As soon as the first gingerbread moves into the supermarkets in the early autumn, the MAK also picks up the boxes with Christmas decorations! With the exhibition Bicycle & lobster. Sparkling tree decorations made of Gablonz (24.9.2025–1.2.2026) the museum opens the doors of the artslide hall for more than 800 filigree works of art made of glass beads and wire from the Bohemian area. The special thing about the Christmas decorations from Gablonz is their surprising everyday relationship and partly also their abstraction: instead of predominantly angels, there are miniature bicycles, planes, houses, geometric shapes and all kinds of animals such as spiders, butterflies and lobsters. These miniatures also captivate many who do not or do not like to celebrate Christmas – an exhibition that is perfect for a museum date with anticipatory Christmas enthusiasts, but also as a worthwhile attempt to make others.
The objects on display also tell of European design culture, finest handicrafts and a pronounced feeling for color and shape. They come from the private collection of the art historian and former curator of the MAK Collection Glass and Ceramics, Waltraud Neuwirth, which has gathered it for decades and thankfully handed over to the MAK as a gift.
To this day, the so -called “Gablonz Christmas Baumscheate” is very popular with designers and collectors. What started with apples, snacks and nuts in the Biedermeier period developed into an important industry in the Bohemian area of the Habsburg monarchy- originally as a marginal product of the rich glassmacher and bijouterietradition. Gablonz on the Neisse (today Jablonec Nad Nisou) became the center of production and, as a genre term, shaped the name of jewelry production.
A special focus of the exhibition is between 1920, when the heyday of production began, and in 1980 – and thus on the often overlooked, aesthetically no less fascinating objects that were created in the post -war decades. In her exhibition design, the designer Johanna Pichlbauer takes up the moment of plastering when the boxes are brought out again to decorate the tree with its glittering content.
High -quality materials are hidden behind each object. The main actors of the production were small hollow pearls with silver and gold entrances, which were processed in an enormous variety of variants in combination with glass rings, glass rings and wire into an artistic, hand-made tree hanging. Musical instruments, fruit, geometric figures and much more were also part of the repertoire of the designers, whose imagination were no limits.
For the exhibition, a richly illustrated catalog was published by the publisher of the Walther and Franz König bookstore: Sparkling tree decorations made of Gablonz 1920-1980 (German/English, ꞓ 42, available in MAK Design Shop). He not only documents the collection of Waltraud Neuwirth, but also provides exciting insights into a chapter of applied art that has been not very respected – a must for everyone who is interested in design history and the aesthetic of glamorous festivals.
In addition, a selection of Gablonzer jewelry is also offered in the MAK Design Shop.
The exhibition is accompanied by a placement program for children and adults: Guided tours, workshops with glittering construction boxes for individual Christmas tree decorations and a digital tool are waiting to be used for*to become a Christmas tree decorations.
Press photos are under MAK.at/presse ready for download.
press conference
Tuesday, 23.9.2025, 10 a.m.
We ask for registration at press@mak.at
opening
Tuesday, 23.9.2025, 7 p.m.
Admission free to the opening of the exhibition
Exhibition location
MAK Kunstblättersaal
Mak, Stubenring 5, 1010 Vienna
Exhibition duration
24.9.2025–1.2.2026
Opening times
Tue 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wed to Sun 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Guest curator
Waltraud Neuwirth
Mak curator
Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel, Head of Mak Library and Collection Collection/Archives
Exhibition design
Johanna Pichlbauer
Graphic design
Theresa Hattinger
publication
The publication appears for the exhibition Sparkling tree decorations made of Gablonz 1920-1980Mak Studies 31, published by Lilli Hollein and Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel, with texts by Lilli Hollein, Petr Nový, Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel, August Ruhs and Nora Witzmann as well as an interview with Waltraud Neuwirth. Artistic object stars by Marlene Mautner. German/English, 224 pages with numerous color images. Mak, Vienna/Verlag of the Walther and Franz König bookstore, Cologne 2025.
Program
available under MAK.at
Mak entry
Ꞓ 16.50/15.50*; reduced ꞓ 13.50/12.50*; Every Tuesday 18 to 10 p.m.: Entry ꞓ 8/7.50*
Admission free for children and adolescents under 19
* Ticket price in online pre-sale