Kunsthalle Wien presents the most extensive survey of the Viennese contemporary art scene organised by the institution in over a decade. For six months, across all of its spaces in the Museumsquartier and at Karlsplatz, Lebt und arbeitet in Wien will bring together over 130 artworks by 56 artists who live and work in Vienna, including painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, photography, performance, sound, film and video. Accompanied by a public programme of talks, performances and events, it places emphasis on the city as a dynamic space of production where art is shaped by a critical approach to the forces of conservatism and a sense of its own agency.
Initially organised by Kunsthalle Wien in 2000, the fifth edition of Lebt und arbeitet in Wien builds upon a longstanding tradition of celebrating Vienna’s lively artistic discourse and diverse community of artists. Curated by Daniel Baumann, Michelle Cotton and Monika Georgieva, it focuses on new and recent works with 38 artists commissioned specifically for the exhibition and numerous artworks presented in Vienna for the first time.
Vienna is approached here as a porous city shaped by ongoing movement, where artists arrive, depart and return: In the last ten years, artists from various cultural backgrounds transformed the city into an exceptionally vibrant place for contemporary art. The exhibition reflects this development, with artists from 42 cities in 18 countries, artists of different generations and at different stages of their career. It also celebrates the many different forms of artistic practice that the city supports; from the new schools of painting to institutional critique, performance and political practice; from sculpture to photography; filmmaking to ceramics; from portraiture to abstraction. Furthermore, it reflects the city’s unique form of social discourse; from the coffeehouses of the last century to the vast array of artist-run project spaces established across the city in this one; ideas are tested, refined and take hold in the public sphere. As such the exhibition pays tribute to the city’s community of artists at large; their self-organised approach to claiming space and their manifold ways of experimenting with content and form. In focusing upon these multiplicities, the survey is not only an invitation to explore and to celebrate what is, but also a call to discuss what could be.
The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme involving numerous institutional and cultural partners including Curated by, Independent Space Index, IKL – Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Klima Biennale Wien, kültüř gemma!, MuseumsQuartier Wien, Phileas, PW-Magazine, TU Wien and Verein Ohrenschmaus. A series of talks on living and working in Vienna began with Die erhitzte Stadt [The Heated City] and continues with Die lebenswerteste Stadt [The Most Liveable City], Die arbeitende Stadt [The Working City] and Die geheime Stadt [The Secret City]. Vienna as a city for artists forms the framework for another series with contributions from the exhibition’s curators and invited artists. The longest day of the year, the summer solstice on Sunday 21 June 2026, will be marked by a day of performance curated by PW-Magazine, an online publication dedicated to live arts. This will feature performances by Bryony Dawson, Paul Ebhart, Alix Eynaudi, Han-Gyeol Lie, Maria Mercedes (Julia Müllner & Camilla Schielin), Sainkho Namtchylak, Evelyn Plaschg and Frank Wasser, hosted across Kunsthalle Wien’s venues.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication initially released for the opening of the exhibition in German, and subsequently in English complete with installation views. Commissioned texts address the artists’ work in 56 short essays by Chris Clarke, Christian Egger, Leonie Huber, Michał Leszuk, Simone Molinari, Vanessa Joan Müller and Inga Charlotte Thiele. The book also includes two conversations that attempt to trace the legacy of Lebt und arbeitet in Wien and reflect upon the situation today with contributions from Helene Baur, Margherita Belcredi, Sabine Breitwieser, Severin Dünser, Anna Jermolaewa, Peter Kogler, Bettina Leidl, Fiona Liewehr, Dorit Margreiter Choy, Bruno Mokross, Vanessa Joan Müller, Susanna Neuburger, Peter Pakesch, Francis Ruyter, Georg Schöllhammer, Eva-Maria Stadler, Nadim Vardag, Martin Vesely, Rita Vitorelli, Sabine B. Vogel and Jun Yang. These artists, curators, critics and other key figures discuss the conditions for artists living and working in the city today in comparison to recent decades that preceded and accompanied the first editions of Lebt und arbeitet in Wien.
A series of artist’s editions is being produced to be sold alongside the exhibition to support Kunsthalle Wien’s programme.
Curators
Daniel Baumann
Daniel Baumann is an art historian, writer and curator based in Basel. He served as curator from 1996 to 2014 of the Adolf Wölfli Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts Bern, Switzerland. He curated Junge Szene at Secession in Vienna in 2003, and started an ongoing exhibition series in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2004. From 2008 to 2013, he ran the Basel exhibition space New Jerseyy together with Tobias Madison, Emanuel Rossetti and Dan Solbach. Along with Dan Byers and Tina Kukielski, he was the curator of the 2013 Carnegie International at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Together with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philip Ursprung and Xue Tan, he is the curator of the annual Engadin Art Talks. He is a contributor to magazines such as Spike and Ursula, and was the director of Kunsthalle Zürich from 2015 to 2025. He currently teaches at Zurich University of the Arts and is a curator at Casa São Roque in Porto, Portugal.
Monika Georgieva
Monika Georgieva is an independent curator based in Vienna. In 2020, she co-founded Laurenz, an independent exhibition space for artistic experimentation and discourse, which she co-directs with artist Aaron Amar Bhamra. Alongside this, she teaches in the fields of architecture and curatorial practice. From 2023 to 2025, she served as Artistic Director of Kunstverein Eisenstadt. She is an alumna and former fellow of the de Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam and one of the initiators and co-authors of the institution’s first Curatorial Summer School, launched in Amsterdam in 2024.
Michelle Cotton
Michelle Cotton is the Artistic Director of Kunsthalle Wien since June 2024.
Lebt und arbeitet in Wien was first organised under the directorship of Gerald Matt in 2000 and was the last exhibition to be presented in Kunsthalle Wien’s original container building at Karlsplatz. Described as ‘reaffirming Vienna’s place as an art capital in the new millennium’, it presented the work of 26 artists in an exhibition curated by Paulo Herkenhoff, Maaretta Jaukkuri and Rosa Martínez. The second edition in 2005 was titled Lebt und arbeitet in Wien II: 23 Contemporaries, featuring 23 positions from the ‘young scene’ in Vienna. It was curated by Lucas Gehrmann, Yuko Hasegawa, Trevor Smith and Hanna Wróblewska and, like the following editions, shown at Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier. In 2010, Lebt und arbeitet in Wien III: Stars in a Plastic Bag was curated by Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Raphaela Platow, Angela Stief and Olga Sviblova and presented the work of 32 artists. The exhibition continued with a new title Destination Wien in 2015. Organised by Nicolaus Schafhausen and the Kunsthalle’s curatorial team (Marie Egger, Anne Faucheret, Lucas Gehrmann, Luca Lo Pinto, Matthias Nothnagel, Andrea Popelka), works by 70 artists were included. Catalogues were published for each exhibition.
Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Executive City Councillor for Cultural Affairs and Science, City of Vienna ‘Vienna has always been a vibrant metropolis of art with immense appeal. It attracts art students and artists from all over the world who come here to live, work and network. They, in turn, form the fertile ground that enriches society and entices people to come to Vienna. Lebt und arbeitet in Wien brings together the most comprehensive overview of contemporary art and, with over 130 works by 56 artists living and working in Vienna, highlights just how creative, diverse and forward-looking our scene is. With newly commissioned works, presentations at two venues, a packed programme of events and an accompanying publication, Kunsthalle Wien presents itself as a vibrant place of exchange, debate and renewal. This exhibition is a resounding plea for the idea that art and culture form the social backbone of a free and democratic community – it is a commitment to Vienna as a vibrant hub of creation that gives artists space to discuss social issues and actively shape the city’s future.’
