"Academic Association for Literature and Music." Interdisciplinary association of students and their friends, established in 1908 to promote avant-garde art, literature, music, and cultural events. Through the students' affiliation with the University of Vienna, used lecture halls for the readings, theater performances, and concerts they organized. Mounted art exhibitions, such as Futurists in early 1913 (organized by Herwarth Walden's gallery Der Sturm, Berlin) and International Black-White Exhibition in 1913–14, an exhibition of more than five hundred works on paper by fifty-four artists, including Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Egon Schiele. Commissioned and published lithographed posters by Kokoschka, Adolf Loos, Arnold Nechansky, and Karl Schwetz to advertise the association's events. In 1912–13 issued literary and artistic periodical Der Ruf (The call). In spring 1913 the Academic Association sponsored a concert of avant-garde music conducted by Arnold Schoenberg, which resulted in a scandal. The subsequent loss in membership ultimately led to the association's dissolution.

Selected Bibliography

Amann, Klaus, and Armin A. Wallas, eds. Expressionismus in Österreich. Vienna: Böhlau, 1994.

Schweiger, Werner J. Der junge Kokoschka: Leben und Werk 1904-1914, pp. 209–34. Vienna: Edition Brandstätter, 1983.