From the earliest silver-chloride calotypes of inventor of photography William Henry Fox-Talbot to developments in digital photography and the tiny but surprisingly capable cameras that are a component of every smartphone today, photography has changed dramatically over the past 150 years. As technology has advanced, so too has photography as a living, dynamic art form, as evidenced by the innovative techniques and compositions of contemporary photographic artists.
Drawing on a diverse collection of historical and contemporary photographs held by Bank Austria and on display at the Museum...

Robert Mapplethorpe's Calla Lily. Andy Warhol's familiar pop-art panels filled with poppies. David LaChapelle's overblown baroque bouquets that upend the conventions of still-life composition. We're accustomed to flowers and mushrooms as seemingly trite decorative motifs, but they have also long been explored as complex subjects by some of the most radical and inventive contemporary artists.

Flowers and Mushrooms takes readers inside the rich and diverse symbolism of its eponymous subjects. Flowers have at times stood for freshness and fertility, transience and death. In...