Albertina

Francesca Woodman

Works from the VERBUND COLLECTION, Vienna

This exhibition highlights the impressive photographs and works of Francesca Woodman. In collaboration with the VERBUND COLLECTION, ALBERTINA presents the first museum exhibition of the American-Italian artist Francesca Woodman (1958–1981) in Austria. Woodman created her oeuvre during an eight-year period from 1973 to 1981, characterized by passionate self-staging and the creative positioning of the female body within spatial configurations in the context of conceptual photography and performance. Her themes revolve around femininity, vulnerability, and creative self-portrayal. Since its founding in 2004, the VERBUND COLLECTION has continuously acquired photographs by Woodman and now holds approximately 80 works, including 20 vintage pieces, making it one of the most comprehensive collections of this exceptional artist.

Matthew Wong – Vincent van Gogh

Painting as a Last Resort

This exhibition presents a thoughtful contrast between approximately 44 paintings and 12 works on paper by Matthew Wong alongside carefully selected pieces by Vincent van Gogh. Collaboratively organized with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Matthew Wong Foundation, it offers a unique exploration of the links between these two artists across time and style.

Jenny Saville

Gaze

The ALBERTINA is hosting Austria’s first-ever solo exhibition dedicated to Jenny Saville, one of the leading contemporary female artists. Born in England in 1970, she is recognized alongside Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst as part of the Young British Artists movement. Her work draws inspiration from Old Masters such as Leonardo and Raphael, as well as modern artists like Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud. Saville's figurative paintings explore the body in its fleshiness while engaging with various media. Since the 1990s, she has produced strikingly corporeal representations characterized by their directness and immediacy. This exhibition provides an overview of her work from the last two decades and features new, previously unseen pieces.

Schätze der ALBERTINA. Kunstgespräche zu Meisterwerken

The Art Talks are a format designed for everyone interested in art! Much like a radio program, masterpieces, as well as artists from the ALBERTINA collections, are introduced. We provide interesting insights about the treasures of the ALBERTINA through discussion, and we especially welcome participation from individuals with visual impairments or blindness.

Damien Hirst

Drawings

Damien Hirst is renowned globally for his iconic paintings, sculptures, and installations. However, his drawings have not received as much attention until now. The ALBERTINA MODERN will present these works for the first time in a museum context. This exhibition offers visitors fascinating insights into Hirst’s creative process from his early sketches in the 1980s, many of which served as precursors to his groundbreaking works. The artist’s sketchbooks reveal the fundamental processes behind these creations. In some instances, Hirst’s drawings are intended to emphasize the concepts underlying his paintings and sculptures, which he regards as equally important to their physical manifestation. Furthermore, for his installation "Making Beautiful Drawings," Hirst designed a drawing machine that features a rotating disc, onto which various colors are applied to create his Spin Drawings.

Travels

Artists on the move

Whether drawn by ancient architecture and landscapes under the southern sun, the familiar alpine worlds, or the surroundings of Vienna, travel provided artists with myriad inspirations. The exhibition at ALBERTINA explores this artistic wanderlust through masterpieces from the 18th and 19th centuries in its own collection. The journey spans from the 'Grand Tour' to explorative voyages, highlighting the various landscapes and motifs captured, as well as the relationship with nature in the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jakob Alt, Thomas Ender, and Tina Blau. Delicate drawings and vividly colored watercolors evoke a longing for new horizons and reflect on the individual experiences of nature and the travel conditions of that era.

Leonardo – Dürer

Renaissance Master Drawings on Colored Ground

This exhibit at the ALBERTINA showcases carefully selected drawings from the museum's own collection alongside prestigious loans from global institutions. It provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of this artistic technique, culminating in the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer.

Brigitte Kowanz

Light Is What We See

At the core of Brigitte Kowanz's work lies the question, 'What is light?' Her response is, 'Light is what we see,' alluding to the paradox that while light makes everything visible, it remains mostly invisible itself. This retrospective at the ALBERTINA showcases significant works created by this notable artist since the 1980s. Light, which embodies qualities of ephemerality, boundlessness, and immateriality, plays a pivotal role in this exhibition. Her light-based artworks are displayed in specially crafted mirrored spaces, reflecting infinitely or made visible through the use of black lights. The exhibition also features the iconic pieces Morsealphabet and Email 02.08.1984 03.08.1984, which resonate with contemporary themes of digitization, virtualization, and the information society.

The Viennese Bohème

Works from the Hagen Society

In 1905, the Hagen Society confidently donated over 800 drawings to the ALBERTINA, a significant gesture that underscores their influence as a precursor to the Secession and the Hagenbund. Between 1880 and 1900, members of this Viennese artist society gathered frequently at the Zum blauen Freihaus pub and Café Sperl. This lively environment fostered the creation of numerous drawings and watercolors from artists like Josef Engelhardt, Adolf Böhm, Rudolf Bacher, Johann Victor Krämer, and others. Using this impressive collection, ALBERTINA presents its inaugural exhibition featuring portraits, caricatures, grotesques, depictions of Viennese characters, dreamlike landscapes, and drawings that hint at the upcoming Secession movement. Many of these works were featured in the art magazine Ver Sacrum, marking this exhibition as a vital contribution to the study of Viennese modernism.

Gothic Modern

Munch, Beckmann, Kollwitz

Commonly understood as a fundamental break with tradition, modernism has overlooked the significant role played by a deliberate return to the distant past of the late Middle Ages in the reinvention of art around 1900. This exhibition illuminates a development from 1870 to 1920, showcasing how numerous artists, including Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, and Otto Dix, were inspired by the expressive art of figures like Holbein, Dürer, Cranach, and Baldung Grien. Their encounters with medieval aesthetics stirred deep emotions and opened new avenues for artists to grapple with core questions of human existence. The exhibition at ALBERTINA uniquely combines masterpieces of modern art with those from the 15th and early 16th centuries.

Lisette Model

Retrospektive

Lisette Model (1901–1983), originating from a Jewish family in Vienna, is regarded as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. The exhibition at ALBERTINA showcases a comprehensive retrospective of her most significant body of work from 1933 to 1957. In addition to iconic photographs such as 'Coney Island Bather' and 'Café Metropole', there are also rarely exhibited works on display. Following her emigration to New York in 1938, Model quickly gained recognition, capturing the complexities of urban life for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar: the poverty of the Lower East Side, the leisure activities of the upper class, and the nightlife in bars and jazz clubs. During the McCarthy era, Model became a renowned teacher. This exhibition also features the first public presentation of the original draft of her 1979 monograph, a classic in the history of photography books.

Remix

From Gerhard Richter to Katharina Grosse

This exhibition at ALBERTINA MODERN presents the Viehof Collection, one of Germany’s most significant private collections, for the first time in Austria. It offers a comprehensive overview from Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, who epitomize the bold, socially critical art of the 1960s, through the influential figures of the 1980s such as Albert Oehlen and Katharina Sieverding, leading to the realm of contemporary abstract art featured through works by Corinne Wasmuht and Katharina Grosse. The exhibition juxtaposes contrasting perspectives, showcasing Jörg Immendorff's expansive large-scale works alongside the conceptual pieces of Joseph Beuys, as well as distinctive contributions from Anne Imhof, Katharina Fritsch, and Nairy Baghramian, which convey a vastly different tone. This shift illuminates how the principle of national artistic schools has been supplanted by a focus on individual styles.

Jitka Hanzlová

Jitka Hanzlová fled from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to West Germany in 1982, where she studied photography in Essen. Her biography significantly influences the main themes of her works: exile, memory, and identity. The ALBERTINA exhibition showcases ten of her most important series: Rokytnik (1990–1994), dedicated to her hometown of the same name, and Forest (2000–2005), which reflects the woods of her childhood. Later, she created portrait series in urban settings, such as Bewohner (1994–1996) and Female (1997–2000), exploring the relationship between individuals and their environments. Born in 1958, Hanzlová is recognized as one of the leading contemporary women photographers internationally. She was awarded the European Photography Award in 1995 and the Paris Photo Prize for Contemporary Photography in 2007. The ALBERTINA is proud to present Hanzlová's first solo museum exhibition in Austria.

Leiko Ikemura

Motherscapes

This exhibition at the ALBERTINA showcases a selection of works by Leiko Ikemura (*1951 in Tsu, Japan). Renowned for her poetically impactful art where she merges Western and Eastern influences, this Japanese-Swiss artist explores themes such as femininity, transformation, and identity. Ikemura captures the fragility and enigma of human existence in images that are both universal and deeply personal. Her body of work is distinguished by its surreal visual language and includes a range of luminous paintings, simplified drawings, and sculptures made from glazed terracotta, glass, and bronze. A central theme of her work is the close connection between humanity and nature, illustrated by the blending of body and landscape as well as through the representation of hybrid beings.

The Fascination of Paper

New perspectives on the collection

The ALBERTINA houses one of the largest collections of drawings, prints, and artistic works on paper worldwide. This remarkable exhibition explores the richness and allure of paper in its various forms. Spanning several centuries from the 15th century to the modern era, it features works from the Graphic Art Collection, the Architectural Collection, and the Collection of Contemporary Art. Among the displays are copperplate engravings for playing cards, large-scale three-dimensional objects, and rarely exhibited pieces that showcase the full spectrum of this unique collection and its artistic style. These unexpected combinations powerfully demonstrate the versatility of paper as a medium.