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Don't Miss

Shows, openings and one-offs with a closing date. See them before they go.

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45 of 45 edited notes

Ei Arakawa-Nash: Cologne of the Maghreb (Bodyphilia Song) — Meyer Kainer
1st · Innere Stadt

Ei Arakawa-Nash: Cologne of the Maghreb (Bodyphilia Song) — Meyer Kainer

When
29 May 2026 – 31 July 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Ei Arakawa-Nash works across performance, painting, and installation with a strong collaborative and bodily dimension. This show at Meyer*Kainer — one of Vienna's most serious commercial galleries — presents an LED installation extending Arakawa-Nash's experiments with performative electronic paintings. The gallery is understated, the work is genuinely interesting, and it's been running quietly since May. Meyer*Kainer is in the 1st, near the Naschmarkt end. Through July 31.

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Beat the Silence on Tour — Wien, Flucc, July 2026
2nd · Leopoldstadt

Beat the Silence on Tour — Wien, Flucc, July 2026

When
1 July 2026 – 31 July 2026
Where
2nd · Leopoldstadt

Beat the Silence is an Austrian band releasing their debut at Flucc in Vienna this July. The show is part of a tour organized with mica – music austria, the country's music information and support organization, which signals a project that's being taken seriously by the industry without the mainstream machinery behind it. Flucc sits on Praterstraße in the 2nd district and is one of Vienna's most reliable venues for emerging Austrian music. The room is small, the sound is good, and the crowd is there because they actually want to be — not because they're performing a scene. That matters. The mica partnership is worth noting. It means there's real infrastructure behind this: a network of people who work with emerging artists because they believe the work deserves to exist. It's not a guarantee of anything, but it's a signal that someone has vetted the band and thought they were worth the support. If you're interested in what Austrian music is doing right now — not the polished export version, but the actual work happening in rooms like this — this is the kind of show that rewards showing up.

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Entangled: Seven Artists from Yale School of Art — Galerie Kandlhofer, June 25–July 31
4th · Wieden

Entangled: Seven Artists from Yale School of Art — Galerie Kandlhofer, June 25–July 31

When
25 June 2026 – 31 July 2026
Where
4th · Wieden

Galerie Kandlhofer on Brucknerstraße in the 4th has a show of seven Yale School of Art MFA graduates, curated by Hector Hollein. The artists are Amy Chasse, Yuna Cho, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, Leyla Tonak, Yuwei Tu, Alixe Turner, and Faye Wei Wei. It's one of those shows that lands because of who's behind it — Hollein is the son of Hans Hollein, one of Austria's most important architects, and Kandlhofer is one of Vienna's most internationally connected commercial galleries. So this isn't a small-scale artist residency show. It's a specific transatlantic proposition: American art school rigour meeting Vienna's gallery infrastructure. The work is contemporary — no particular unified aesthetic across the seven, but that's the point. Each artist brings their own language. The gallery space itself is clean and serious, the kind of place where you can actually see what's on the walls without competing with the venue's personality. It runs through July 31. Open Tuesday to Friday, 11–18h. Free entry. If you're in the 4th and haven't been to Kandlhofer, this is a solid reason to walk up Brucknerstraße and find out what they're doing.

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Eun-Me Ahn: Post-Orientalist Express — ImPulsTanz @ Burgtheater
1st · Innere Stadt

Eun-Me Ahn: Post-Orientalist Express — ImPulsTanz @ Burgtheater

When
30 July 2026 – 1 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

South Korea's most influential choreographer, Eun-Me Ahn, makes her Vienna debut with *Post-Orientalist Express* — an internationally celebrated work that blends opulent imagery, K-pop energy, and futuristic club aesthetics. Described as the "Pina Bausch of Asia," Ahn has designed over 90 costumes for her ensemble, creating a visual and kinetic spectacle that moves between ritual, Western and inner-Asian Orientalisms, and avant-garde performance. This is a rare Vienna first — an artist who has been working for decades and is only now appearing here. ImPulsTanz has put South Korea in the spotlight this year with support from Korea Kulturzentrum Wien. Performances July 30 at 21:00 and August 1 at 19:00 at Burgtheater. Tickets via impulstanz.com.

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Eun-Me Ahn: Post-Orientalist Express — ImPulsTanz, Burgtheater, July 30–Aug 1
1st · Innere Stadt

Eun-Me Ahn: Post-Orientalist Express — ImPulsTanz, Burgtheater, July 30–Aug 1

When
30 July 2026 – 1 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Eun-Me Ahn — South Korea's most influential choreographer — brings her Vienna debut to the Burgtheater for ImPulsTanz, July 30–August 1. Post-Orientalist Express, which premiered in May 2025 to international acclaim, is a choreographic deconstruction of Orientalist imagery and its relationship to Korean identity. The work is funny, political, and formally precise in equal measure. This is the centrepiece of ImPulsTanz 2026's Korea focus, and it fills large spaces without losing intimacy. Tickets via impulstanz.com.

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Isle of Summer Vienna — electronic festival, Donauinsel, August 1
22nd · Donaustadt

Isle of Summer Vienna — electronic festival, Donauinsel, August 1

When
1 August 2026
Where
22nd · Donaustadt

Isle of Summer is Vienna's new electronic open-air festival, taking over the Donauinsel on August 1 from 11:00 to 23:00. It's a serious lineup across four stages — 30+ international artists including Ben Böhmer (live), CamelPhat, Deborah de Luca, Eric Prydz, I Hate Models, Kobosil, and WhoMadeWho. The programming spans melodic techno, hard techno, and trance, so there's range within the sound. The festival is located on the southern section of the Donauinsel, near the Brigittenauer Brücke, south of the Georg Danzer Steg — a specific footprint, not the main Donauinselfest territory. This is the Vienna debut of the Isle of Summer format (the main festival runs in Munich). The combination of a serious electronic lineup and the Danube Island setting in the height of summer is the angle. The space and the season matter as much as the music. Tickets are available now via isleofsummer.at. Check the site for current pricing.

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Paradies Garten Festival 2026 — Schloss Prugg, July 31–Aug 2

Paradies Garten Festival 2026 — Schloss Prugg, July 31–Aug 2

When
31 July 2026 – 2 August 2026

Paradies Garten returns to Schloss Prugg in Bruck an der Leitha — forty minutes from Vienna by train — for its fourth edition, July 31 through August 2. The festival runs 15:00–23:00 each day, 18+. The concept here is the setting itself. A baroque castle and its gardens become the festival space, with stages designed into the landscape, intimate corners woven through the grounds, and immersive experiences that reward wandering rather than stage-camping. The programme moves with intention from sunlit afternoons into long summer nights. The electronic music lineup is serious — Fritz Kalkbrenner, Shy FX, Chloé Caillet, Ryan Elliott, Kapote B2B Gee Lane — but the angle isn't just the names. It's that this festival understands the difference between a music event and a setting worth being in. Schloss Prugg itself is the draw. The castle and its gardens don't feel like a venue dressed up for the weekend — they feel like the thing itself. That's harder to do than it sounds. Most festivals happen *at* a location. This one happens *in* one. Tickets are €79.99–89.99 via rausgegangen.de. The train from Wien Hauptbahnhof to Bruck an der Leitha takes about 40 minutes, and the castle is reachable from the station. If you've been to Paradies Garten before, you know what to expect — a genuinely beautiful setting and a programme that doesn't waste it. If you haven't, the fourth edition is a reasonable place to start.

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Marianne Lang: In a state of flux — Bildraum 07, June 3–August 6
7th · Neubau

Marianne Lang: In a state of flux — Bildraum 07, June 3–August 6

When
3 June 2026 – 6 August 2026
Where
7th · Neubau

Marianne Lang's drawings operate in a territory where stable systems become unstable and structures shift. Her exhibition at Bildraum 07 — Bildrecht's small gallery space in the 7th, outside the commercial circuit — questions how we understand nature. Not as the opposite of culture, but as a dynamic system of shared conditionedness where fragility, transformation, and process are what matter. The work asks what happens when control dissolves and systems set themselves in motion. The-Artist-Is-Present events on Tuesday June 23 (16–18h) and Thursday July 16 (15–18h). Open Tue–Fri 10–15h (summer hours). Free.

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ImPulsTanz 10 Years of Public Moves — Arkadenhof Rathaus, August 8
1st · Innere Stadt

ImPulsTanz 10 Years of Public Moves — Arkadenhof Rathaus, August 8

When
8 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

ImPulsTanz's Public Moves program turns ten this August, and the anniversary edition lands in the Arkadenhof of Vienna City Hall — one of the city's most spectacular outdoor spaces. On August 8 from 17:00, the festival offers free dance classes in the arcaded courtyard, with teaching artists spinning their favourite tracks. All levels welcome. No registration, no fee. Public Moves is the festival's most democratic gesture: outdoor dance classes scattered through Vienna's parks and public spaces across the entire ImPulsTanz season. This 10th anniversary edition in the Arkadenhof is the culmination — the space itself is part of the event. The Rathaus courtyard holds a particular kind of Viennese grandeur: formal but not forbidding, built to be walked through, suddenly intimate when filled with people. The same evening sees an after-party from 21:00. Free. If you've never been to an ImPulsTanz event, Public Moves is the entry point: no dance background needed, no ticket required, just show up and move. The teaching artists are there because they want to be. The music is theirs. The courtyard is yours.

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ImPulsTanz — Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas, July 2026
1st · Innere Stadt

ImPulsTanz — Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas, July 2026

When
9 July 2026 – 9 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker returns to Vivaldi's Four Seasons with a new production that opens at ImPulsTanz this July. She's choreographed this score multiple times across her career — each version a different conversation with the same music. This one is described as a fresh take, and given her track record with minimalism and the geometry of the body, it will likely be worth the attention. De Keersmaeker's work has shaped contemporary dance for decades. Her company Rosas is one of the field's most important. If you've seen her work, you know the precision and the quiet intensity. If you haven't, this is a reasonable entry point — the music carries you, the movement does the rest. ImPulsTanz runs July 9 through August 9 across multiple venues: Burgtheater, Volkstheater, Akademietheater, Arsenal, WUK, and others. The festival also features Eun-Me Ahn's Post-Orientalist Express (the Korean choreographer's first Vienna appearance) and Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. De Keersmaeker's shows tend to sell quickly. Check impulstanz.com for availability and ticket prices — the festival's website has the full program and venue details.

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KreativRaum Galerie: Tatjana Bühler — Vernissage July 30, Biberstraße
1st · Innere Stadt

KreativRaum Galerie: Tatjana Bühler — Vernissage July 30, Biberstraße

When
30 July 2026 – 9 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

KreativRaum Galerie — a small independent gallery at Biberstraße 4 in the 1st district — opens a solo show by Vienna-based painter Tatjana Bühler on July 30. The show, *Schwarze Katze im weissen Raum* (Black Cat in White Room), features five works from her series *Rite*, which explores ritual and transformation through layered, bold color. Bühler works in abstract painting with genuine visual weight. The gallery itself is the kind of place that doesn't announce itself — open Tue/Wed/Fri 15–19h and Sat 12–17h. The vernissage is July 30 at 18:30. If you've been walking past Biberstraße without noticing, this is the moment to ring the bell.

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Nation of Language — Flex
1st · Innere Stadt

Nation of Language — Flex

When
15 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

The Brooklyn synth-pop band Nation of Language plays Flex on August 15. Their fourth album, *Dance Called Memory*, is quietly devastating — frontman Ian Devaney writes about depression and connection in the vocabulary of vintage synthesizers and post-punk grooves. The kind of record that pulls you back to listen again. Flex is the right room for this. Low ceiling, the Danube canal just outside, capacity around 500. The space holds intimacy without trying. Tickets via oeticket.

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Superflux: The Craftocene — Weltmuseum Wien, until Aug 16
1st · Innere Stadt

Superflux: The Craftocene — Weltmuseum Wien, until Aug 16

When
3 March 2026 – 16 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

The Craftocene is Superflux's first major solo exhibition — the London design studio of Anab Jain and Jon Ardern, known for speculative work on climate futures and ecological imagination. Three pieces together for the first time: Refuge for Resurgence (2021), Nobody Told Me Rivers Dream (2025), and Relics of Abundance (2026), developed specifically for Vienna. The Weltmuseum Wien is the right place for this. It's a museum of world cultures that has been rethinking its colonial collections for years. The combination of speculative design, ecological thinking, and the museum's ethnographic collection is genuinely unusual — not the standard exhibition pairing. Superflux takes non-Western knowledge systems seriously, which is rare in design discourse. The work carries weight without performing gravity. It closes August 16.

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Vinyl & Music Summer Nights — Ottakringer Brauerei, August 21–22
16th · Ottakring

Vinyl & Music Summer Nights — Ottakringer Brauerei, August 21–22

When
21 August 2026 – 22 August 2026
Where
16th · Ottakring

Vinyl & Music Summer Nights returns to the Ottakringer Brauerei on August 21–22, 16:00–22:00. Free entry. The courtyard of Vienna's last family-owned independent brewery — operating since 1837 — becomes a summer evening market: records to dig through, drinks, food, and music. The format is the festival's relaxed summer edition, the kind of event that becomes a late-August ritual for people who know the space. Ottakringer in the 16th district is one of Vienna's most characterful event venues: a working industrial brewery with a courtyard that holds a crowd without feeling like a festival. Presented by ROCK ANTENNE Österreich. Tom Sattler, a Rolling Stones collector and expert, will have exclusive special editions of the new Stones album Foreign Tongues in stock. The sound is Italo — Zucchero, Gianna Nannini, Måneskin — and the brewery's new Bier Spritz (beer and sparkling wine) is the drink of the evening.

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Sammy Obeid: Viva Vienna! — The Comedy Pub

Sammy Obeid: Viva Vienna! — The Comedy Pub

When
27 August 2026

Sammy Obeid is a Palestinian-American comedian with a sharp, culturally specific set — not the usual expat comedy club fare. He's touring Europe and brings real observation to his work. Performing at The Comedy Pub Wien on August 27. The venue lists the show as almost full on Eventbrite, so ticket availability is worth checking. English-language comedy in Vienna is always in short supply, and this one is genuinely worth the effort.

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Don't Miss
SD1. Bezirk
1st · Innere Stadt

Selva de Carvalho / Bianca Kennedy / Martin Sommer — Galerie Krinzinger, until Aug 29

When
3 July 2026 – 29 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Galerie Krinzinger opens its summer group show on July 3, running until August 29, with works by Selva de Carvalho, Bianca Kennedy, and Martin Sommer. This is the gallery that first showed Marina Abramovic, Valie Export, and Chris Burden in Vienna — a 50-year-old institution with a genuinely international reach across Europe and the Americas. Their summer shows are consistently worth seeing. The Seilerstatte 16 address puts it in the 1st district, a short walk from the Stadtpark. Open Tue–Fri 12–18h, Sat 11–16h. Free entry.

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Liquid Market Festival Wien — Otto-Wagner-Areal, August 27–29
14th · Penzing

Liquid Market Festival Wien — Otto-Wagner-Areal, August 27–29

When
27 August 2026 – 29 August 2026
Where
14th · Penzing

The 11th Liquid Market Festival moves to the Otto-Wagner-Areal in the 14th district — a 30,000-square-metre former psychiatric hospital complex designed by Otto Wagner in 1907. August 27–29, 15:00–22:00. Fifty bars, brands, and mixologists from across Europe; presentations, workshops, tastings, music, and nightly afterparties from 22:00. Tickets include unlimited cocktail tastings. The venue change from MetaStadt to this Jugendstil campus is the real news: the festival is now set in one of Vienna's most architecturally extraordinary spaces.

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Die Donauinsel — 21 Kilometer Freiraum, Wien Museum, until August 30
4th · Wieden

Die Donauinsel — 21 Kilometer Freiraum, Wien Museum, until August 30

When
26 March 2026 – 30 August 2026
Where
4th · Wieden

The Donauinsel is where every Viennese ends up in summer — a 21-kilometre strip of public land that feels like the city's actual living room. This exhibition at the Wien Museum traces how it came to exist: a 1970s megaproject born from flood control anxiety, shaped by engineering ambition and environmental argument, now a place where the city actually breathes. The show works through archival photographs, planning models, and contemporary art to show what the island almost was and why it became what it is instead. It's the kind of exhibition that explains something you've walked past a hundred times but never quite understood. Running until August 30. Wien Museum, Karlsplatz 8, the 4th. Standard admission.

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Mire Lee: The Heart of My Machine is Golden Lead — Secession, from June 26
1st · Innere Stadt

Mire Lee: The Heart of My Machine is Golden Lead — Secession, from June 26

When
26 June 2026 – 30 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Mire Lee's kinetic sculptures are machines that fail in interesting ways. They move, leak, and breathe — caught in endless cycles of production and exhaustion that feel simultaneously industrial and biological. The boundaries between human and machine dissolve in her work, and what emerges is genuinely unsettling: soft parts moving where you'd expect metal, hard forms that behave like they're tired. Lee was born in Seoul and now lives between Amsterdam and Seoul. She's shown at Tate Modern, the Venice Biennale, and the New Museum in New York. This is her first major solo in Austria. The show opens at the Secession on June 25 — vernissage at 19:00 — and runs until August 30. The Secession itself is worth the visit: a 1897 Jugendstil building on Friedrichstraße in the 1st district, with its own particular light and a garden courtyard that feels separate from the city. Admission is €5. If you're the kind of person who finds yourself staring at how something moves rather than what it is, this is worth your time.

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Katherine Hubbard & Onyeka Igwe — Secession, opens June 11
1st · Innere Stadt

Katherine Hubbard & Onyeka Igwe — Secession, opens June 11

When
11 June 2026 – 30 August 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

The Secession opens a double exhibition on June 11: Katherine Hubbard, an American artist working with photography and film, presents *The Great Room*, a five-year project that began during the pandemic as her mother was diagnosed with dementia. The work centres on her mother's apartment in a Victorian house in Stone Ridge, NY, and documents encounters between the two women—moments where grief and tenderness, disorientation and intimacy coexist. Hubbard often includes herself in the frame, camera and tripod visible, which reads as both transparency and an ethical refusal to leave her subject alone. Alongside this, British-Nigerian artist Onyeka Igwe presents *No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame*, which excavates the colonial archive not as a fixed repository but as a site of friction and unresolved violence. Her films and installations work with celluloid reels and visual records of past bureaucracies, attending to what is missing or suppressed. The work reactivates these materials as a historiography felt through the body. The Secession has been Vienna's most consistently interesting exhibition space for contemporary international art since 1897 — the building itself, designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich, is worth the trip alone. Both exhibitions run until late August. Admission €5.

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Lange Nacht der Wiener Märkte 2026
1st · Innere Stadt

Lange Nacht der Wiener Märkte 2026

When
4 September 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Vienna's 17 permanent markets stay open until 23:00 on Friday, September 4, the last day of summer holidays. Live music, performances, street food, and the kind of evening that makes the Naschmarkt feel like it belongs to the city again. The event is now in its fifth year — last time, 227,000 people came. Three new markets are joining this year: Bio-Freyung, Alszeilenmarkt, and Marktraum am Naschmarkt. Free entry everywhere. The first 10,000 visitors get a cloth market bag; if you visit two markets and get your card stamped before 21:30, you're in the draw for one of 230 gift baskets filled with market products.

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Sufi Qawwali Night: Fanna-Fi-Allah @ WUK Wien
9th · Alsergrund

Sufi Qawwali Night: Fanna-Fi-Allah @ WUK Wien

When
5 September 2026
Where
9th · Alsergrund

Fanna-Fi-Allah are one of the most respected Sufi Qawwali ensembles performing internationally. For over two decades they have upheld the tradition in its most authentic form — devotional music from the Chishti lineage of South Asian Sufism, performed with extraordinary intensity. This is their 26th year anniversary tour. Qawwali is a passionate practice in which the fire of divine love is expressed through mystical verses sung in Urdu, Farsi, Hindi and Punjabi. The form dates back roughly a thousand years to the first Sufi mystics who came to India. The music is hypnotic and can run for hours. This is not background music — you go to properly listen. WUK is the right room for it: intimate, attentive, the kind of space where the music can breathe and the room can breathe with it. September 5 at 7:30 PM. Tickets from €48.

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Fanna-Fi-Allah Sufi Qawwali — WUK Wien
9th · Alsergrund

Fanna-Fi-Allah Sufi Qawwali — WUK Wien

When
5 September 2026
Where
9th · Alsergrund

Fanna-Fi-Allah brings 26 years of Sufi Qawwali practice to WUK on September 5. Qawwali is devotional music rooted in the Chishti order of South Asia — a spiritual practice where voice and rhythm dissolve the boundary between performer and listener. What distinguishes Fanna-Fi-Allah is their refusal to soften it for concert halls. They bring the intensity of a ritual, not a recital. The ensemble has been touring and teaching since 1998, and this is genuinely uncommon programming in Vienna. If you've never heard Qawwali live, the experience is physical — the repetition, the layering of voices, the way the music builds toward something that feels like transcendence. Tickets €48 (early bird sold out). Saturday, September 5, 7:30 PM.

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Photo I Brut: Feeling Photography — Foto Arsenal Wien, until Sept 6
3rd · Landstraße

Photo I Brut: Feeling Photography — Foto Arsenal Wien, until Sept 6

When
22 May 2026 – 6 September 2026
Where
3rd · Landstraße

Art Brut photography — images made outside the art system, by self-taught photographers working from compulsion or necessity rather than aesthetic intention — is one of the most genuinely surprising categories in visual art. Photo I Brut: Feeling Photography, showing at FOTO ARSENAL WIEN (Arsenal Objekt 19A, the 3rd) until September 6, presents over forty artistic processes from the Bruno Decharme Collection, the most important private collection of this work in the world. This is the first time the collection has been shown in Austria. The exhibition explores work by autodidacts who use photography to create independent visual worlds outside normative art. Some artists have spent decades on a single obsession — writing tiny inscriptions on photographs, or collecting and reassembling images into intriguing structures. Others use photography to process extreme conditions, emotional disruption, or withdrawal from society. The work bears the traces of these lives. Like Art Brut itself, Photo Brut emerges from marginalized living situations and personal passion rather than academic training or market logic. FOTO ARSENAL WIEN is Vienna's dedicated photography museum, housed in the Arsenal complex. Open Tue–Sun 11–19h. The show has been running since May and deserves more attention than it has received.

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Parallel Vienna 2026 — Otto-Wagner-Areal, the 14th
14th · Penzing

Parallel Vienna 2026 — Otto-Wagner-Areal, the 14th

When
9 September 2026 – 13 September 2026
Where
14th · Penzing

The 14th edition of Parallel Vienna takes over the Otto-Wagner-Areal — the former psychiatric hospital complex in the 14th district — September 9–13. It's the alternative art fair where independent galleries, artist-run spaces, and initiatives from across Europe exhibit in Jugendstil buildings and grounds. The fair has a genuinely different energy from the commercial circuit: the buildings are strange and historically charged, the work is newer and riskier, the whole thing sits somewhere between art event and urban exploration. The Otto-Wagner-Areal itself is worth the trip — the site carries weight, and Parallel Vienna knows how to use it.

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Gault&Millau Genuss-Messe 2026 — Ottakringer Brauerei, September 12–13
16th · Ottakring

Gault&Millau Genuss-Messe 2026 — Ottakringer Brauerei, September 12–13

When
12 September 2026 – 13 September 2026
Where
16th · Ottakring

The Gault&Millau Genuss-Messe returns to the Ottakringer Brauerei on September 12–13 — 110 of Austria's best chefs, 100 top wineries, and selected food producers gathering in the courtyard of Vienna's last family-owned independent brewery. This is the serious food event of the Viennese autumn: not a street food festival but the people who actually shape what Austria eats and drinks, in a room where you can taste their work directly. The Ottakringer setting is exactly right — industrial, characterful, genuinely Viennese. Day pass €189; two-day ticket €299. Tickets at gaultmillau.at.

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Parallel Vienna 2026 — independent art fair, September 9–13

Parallel Vienna 2026 — independent art fair, September 9–13

When
9 September 2026 – 13 September 2026

Parallel Vienna is the independent art fair that runs alongside Vienna Art Week but deliberately outside the commercial gallery circuit. The 14th edition takes place September 9–13 at the Otto Wagner Areal in the 6th district. The format is what makes it: artists and independent spaces take over unconventional venues—site-specific installations, performances, artist-led projects—rather than white cube booths. Work is priced for actual buyers, not collectors with waiting lists. You can talk to the artists. Parallel Vienna has been one of Vienna's most interesting art events since it started in 2013. Check parallelvienna.com for the full program and exhibitor list.

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COMICS brut — Galerie Gugging, from June 3

COMICS brut — Galerie Gugging, from June 3

When
3 June 2026 – 13 September 2026

Galerie Gugging, in Maria Gugging near Klosterneuburg, shows work by artists who've been in the MoMA, the Albertina, and the Belvedere since the 1970s — all of them working from the village's Art Brut community. The gallery opens COMICS brut on June 3, running through September 13, and it's a genuinely unusual show: the raw, unschooled energy of Outsider Art meeting the sequential narrative form that was itself once considered low. The intersection is rare enough to justify the 30-minute train ride north on the S40 to Klosterneuburg-Kierling. The Gugging artists, many of whom have spent decades in the village's artistic community, are among the most distinctive voices in European art. The show explores how Art Brut has shaped the world of comics — not as a historical survey but as a living conversation between two forms that both started outside the official art system. Open Tuesdays through Sundays. Check galeriegugging.com for hours and admission.

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artwalk18 — Ateliers & Galerien Rundgang, Währing, September 13–14
18th · Währing

artwalk18 — Ateliers & Galerien Rundgang, Währing, September 13–14

When
13 September 2026 – 14 September 2026
Where
18th · Währing

The 13th artwalk18 — the annual open studio and gallery walk through Währing — takes place September 13–14 (14:00–19:00). Galleries, ateliers, and pop-up locations across the 18th district open their doors. The event is organized by art18, a network of artists and cultural spaces that makes Währing's entire creative community visible for one weekend a year. Währing is one of Vienna's least-covered districts in the art press; this is the moment when it all comes into view. Free entry. The format rewards walking — you discover studios and spaces you wouldn't otherwise know exist. Pick up a map at art18.at.

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Baba Zula —30th Anniversary Tour @ WUK Wien
9th · Alsergrund

Baba Zula —30th Anniversary Tour @ WUK Wien

When
20 September 2026
Where
9th · Alsergrund

Baba Zula are Istanbul's great psychedelic dub outfit — electric saz, darbuka, and bass mixing Anatolian folk with dub and electronica. They've been at it since 1996, and this is their 30th anniversary tour. Vienna doesn't see them often, but when they do come through, it's a genuinely special night. WUK is the right room for it — dark, packed, no pretence. There's a local angle too: the Turkish-Viennese diaspora connection runs deep in the 9th, and this is the kind of show that brings that community together.

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Helga Philipp: Bewegungsräume — Albertina, until Sept 20
1st · Innere Stadt

Helga Philipp: Bewegungsräume — Albertina, until Sept 20

When
1 May 2026 – 20 September 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Helga Philipp (1939–2002) was one of Austria's most important artists and a central figure in concrete art and op-art — yet she remains systematically undervalued. This first major retrospective at the Albertina runs until September 20 and spans around 50 works: paintings, drawings, prints, and kinetic objects that show how Philipp built a rigorous, mathematically grounded visual language around perception, motion, and serial structure from the 1960s onward. The work is genuinely rigorous — geometric abstraction that asks you to look twice, to notice how a shape shifts depending on where you stand. It's the kind of show that deserves more attention than it gets, especially running alongside the Albertina's larger blockbuster. The exhibition is included with standard Albertina admission.

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Samsonova / Schädler / Staeuber — group show, Vernissage July 11

Samsonova / Schädler / Staeuber — group show, Vernissage July 11

When
11 July 2026 – 26 September 2026

Three Vienna-based artists — Natalia Samsonova, René Schädler, and Oliver Staeuber — open a group exhibition on July 11 at a gallery on Karlsplatz. Samsonova, Russian-born and Vienna-based, works across painting and mixed media. The Vernissage runs 15:00–16:30, with the show continuing until September 26. The July opening and Karlsplatz location make this a natural summer gallery visit. Free entry.

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KAWS: Art & Comix — Albertina Modern, April 3–September 27
1st · Innere Stadt

KAWS: Art & Comix — Albertina Modern, April 3–September 27

When
3 April 2026 – 27 September 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

KAWS is an American artist who began as a graffiti writer in New York in the 1990s and built one of the most globally recognized visual languages in contemporary art — his characters (XX eyes, cartoon proportions) appear everywhere from streetwear to museum walls. At the Albertina Modern until September 27, he's placed in dialogue with Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Keith Haring, Joyce Pensato, Cosima von Bonin, and Peter Saul: artists who questioned the distinction between high and low art from the 1960s to now. The curatorial argument is that this is a serious lineage, not a brand crossover. The show asks whether KAWS's global reach and commercial success have obscured the actual weight of the work. The Albertina Modern (the former Künstlerhaus on Karlsplatz in the 1st) is the right venue for this question — institutional enough to give the argument credibility, but not so grand that it crushes the work. Standard Albertina admission applies.

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GLANZSTÜCKE: Van Cleef & Arpels × MAK Collection — until Sept 27
1st · Innere Stadt

GLANZSTÜCKE: Van Cleef & Arpels × MAK Collection — until Sept 27

When
10 June 2026 – 27 September 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

The MAK's latest exhibition puts Paris-based Van Cleef & Arpels high jewelry in direct dialogue with masterpieces from its own collection of applied arts. The show argues for jewelry as a serious art form — not luxury product — by pairing contemporary pieces with historical textiles, ceramics, and decorative objects that share the same language of ornament and craft. It's an angle the MAK knows how to make: the boundary between art and craft dissolves when you see them side by side. On Stubenring in the 1st. Tue 10–21h, Wed–Sun 10–18h. Until September 27.

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Don't Miss
KG3. Bezirk
3rd · Landstraße

kleine galerie: HOMELESS SAPIENS — Kundmanngasse, the 3rd

When
18 June 2026 – 30 September 2026
Where
3rd · Landstraße

The kleine galerie, founded in 1947 as an institution of Viennese popular education, opens HOMELESS SAPIENS on June 18 with a vernissage at 18:00, running through September 2026. Six artists — Michael Gumhold, Elisabeth Grübl, Ma Jia, Viktoria Körösi, Fabian Seiz, Esther Stocker — explore the show's title through varied mediums and approaches. The vernissage includes accordion accompaniment by Giorgios Lolas. The kleine galerie operates across three locations in Vienna (Kundmanngasse, Alterlaa, Kunstsalon 23) and has been doing so for nearly eighty years, predating the contemporary art market entirely. It was built explicitly to reach people who had never set foot in a museum — a mission that still holds. Free entry. Open Wed–Fri 12–18h.

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Waves Vienna 2026 — Gürtel, October 1–3
8th · Josefstadt

Waves Vienna 2026 — Gürtel, October 1–3

When
1 October 2026 – 3 October 2026
Where
8th · Josefstadt

Waves Vienna runs October 1–3 across 11 stages along the Gürtel — the annual festival and conference for emerging international music. This year the UK is the Guest of Honour, bringing a concentrated showcase of British emerging acts alongside 100+ artists from across Europe and beyond. The format is the point: not a mainstream festival but a discovery machine. The bands playing Waves in October are the bands you'll be following in two years. The Gürtel venues (Chelsea, B72, and others in the U-Bahn arches) are exactly the right rooms for this. The conference runs alongside, covering everything from sync and AI to new voices from Central and Eastern Europe. Tickets and full programme via wavesvienna.com.

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Miao Ying: Come, Sit, Stay — Belvedere 21, July 10–Oct 4
3rd · Landstraße

Miao Ying: Come, Sit, Stay — Belvedere 21, July 10–Oct 4

When
10 July 2026 – 4 October 2026
Where
3rd · Landstraße

Miao Ying is a Chinese artist working at the intersection of internet culture, artificial intelligence, and artistic authorship. Her exhibition Come, Sit, Stay opens at Belvedere 21 on July 10 and runs until October 4. The show doesn't argue against AI — it investigates what survives when the tool becomes indistinguishable from the maker. What does it mean to make art when machines can generate images, texts, and sounds on demand, and the gesture is no longer legible as human intent? The title — the commands you give a dog — carries the weight. Belvedere 21, in the 3rd, has become one of Vienna's most consistently interesting venues for international contemporary art since its reopening. This is Miao Ying's first major Austrian solo.

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Albertina 250 Jahre — "Sammeln für die Zukunft", June 19–Oct 11
1st · Innere Stadt

Albertina 250 Jahre — "Sammeln für die Zukunft", June 19–Oct 11

When
19 June 2026 – 11 October 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

The Albertina marks 250 years in 2026 with an anniversary exhibition that reframes the collection's founding story. Archduchess Marie Christine, co-founder alongside Duke Albert of Saxony-Teschen, endowed the collection with both wealth and artistic direction — a role that history has largely credited to her husband alone. The exhibition *Sammeln für die Zukunft* (Collecting for the Future) runs June 19–October 11 and spans the museum's 1.2 million objects: from Dürer's Hare to Schiele's expressive drawings, tracing how a private collection became one of the world's most important graphic art institutions. The angle is not "visit the Albertina" but "the Albertina's anniversary show is an argument about who gets credit for founding one of the world's great drawing collections." Marie Christine's role as both patron and artist — she was active as a painter herself — shaped the collection's scope in ways that deserve to be named. The museum is in the 1st district, Albertinapl. 1. Standard admission applies. The **Open Door event** on July 4–5 (the founding anniversary weekend) offers free access — a good entry point if you've been meaning to look.

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Njola Impressions: Kiteezi — Theseustempel
1st · Innere Stadt

Njola Impressions: Kiteezi — Theseustempel

When
28 May 2026 – 11 October 2026
Where
1st · Innere Stadt

Ugandan artist Nabukenya Allen (Njola) is transforming waste from the Kiteezi landfill — which collapsed in a devastating landslide in August 2024 — into objects and installations about renewal, over-consumption, and the Boda-Boda drivers of Kampala. The work is on view outdoors in the Volksgarten's Theseustempel, the 1st district. The opening vernissage on May 28 at 19:00 is free. The exhibition runs through October 11. Allen is in residence in Vienna through PART International Art Residency Austria. This is the kind of work that sits at the intersection of Ugandan urban politics and Viennese institutional space — rare enough to be worth making time for.

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Lebt und arbeitet in Wien — Kunsthalle Wien, May 1–October 26
7th · Neubau

Lebt und arbeitet in Wien — Kunsthalle Wien, May 1–October 26

When
1 May 2026 – 26 October 2026
Where
7th · Neubau

Contemporary art from Vienna, May–October. The Kunsthalle Wien runs "Lebt und arbeitet in Wien" across both its locations — Museumsquartier (the 7th) and Karlsplatz (the 4th) — a major survey of 56 artists who live and work in the city right now. Curated by Daniel Baumann, Michelle Cotton, and Monika Georgieva, the show spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, film, and video. Over 130 works. The title is the argument: not "Austrian art" but art made by people who chose Vienna. Thirty-eight artists created new work for this exhibition. It runs until October 26.

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Sleaford Mods — Arena Wien, November 3
3rd · Landstraße

Sleaford Mods — Arena Wien, November 3

When
3 November 2026
Where
3rd · Landstraße

Sleaford Mods — the Nottingham duo of Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn — play Arena Wien on November 3 at 20:00. Fifteen years of two-minute electronic blasts and working-class fury, delivered with the deadpan precision of someone who has run out of patience. The music is politically direct, formally uncompromising, and cuts through noise. The Arena Wien is the right room: mid-size, standing, the crowd that doesn't need the music explained to them. Sleaford Mods shows sell out. Tickets via Live Nation.

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Herbert Boeckl – Hans Josephsohn: Figural Archetypes — Leopold Museum, July 24
7th · Neubau

Herbert Boeckl – Hans Josephsohn: Figural Archetypes — Leopold Museum, July 24

When
24 July 2026 – 10 January 2027
Where
7th · Neubau

Two artists, one precise pairing. Herbert Boeckl (1894–1966) was an Austrian expressionist painter whose raw, physical figuration became one of the most important contributions to 20th-century Austrian art. Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012), born in Königsberg, worked as a sculptor — his half-figures and heads carry the same quality of compressed physical presence. The connection isn't obvious at first, but it is exact: both artists worked in figuration when abstraction was dominant, and both made work that is difficult to look away from. The Leopold Museum is the right place for this show. Its collection is built around exactly this tradition — figuration as a serious commitment, not a retreat. The exhibition runs from July 24 through January 10, 2027, in the 7th district. Standard Leopold Museum admission.

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Terminal Piece — mumok, opens June 20
7th · Neubau

Terminal Piece — mumok, opens June 20

When
20 June 2026 – 7 February 2027
Where
7th · Neubau

Fatima Hellberg's inaugural exhibition as mumok's new director opens June 20, anchored by Kate Millett's Terminal Piece (1972) — a work that defines the museum's new direction under her leadership. Millett was a feminist activist, sculptor, and writer; the choice signals what mumok intends to become. The show unfolds as an exploration of embodied attention: the idea that encountering an artwork is not passive consumption but active participation. Works from the collection sit alongside new productions and loans across multiple levels of the museum. Free entry opening night (2–8pm). Runs until February 2027.

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Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures — KunstHausWien
3rd · Landstraße

Seeds. Reclaiming Roots, Sowing Futures — KunstHausWien

When
9 April 2026 – 14 February 2027
Where
3rd · Landstraße

The Klima Biennale Wien's Seeds exhibition at KunstHausWien explores seeds as a mirror of our relationship to the earth and to each other. The show frames food sovereignty, colonial seed histories, and the politics of what grows where — not as abstract concepts, but as lived realities embedded in the objects on display. It's the kind of exhibition that starts with a single seed and unfolds into questions about power, land, and belonging. The venue matters. KunstHausWien — Friedensreich Hundertwasser's building on Untere Weißgerberlände in the 3rd — has never looked like a normal museum. Its walls curve, its windows are irregular, the floors slope. The neighbourhood around it has changed faster than anywhere in Vienna, which makes the building's refusal to conform feel even more pointed. The exhibition runs until February 2027, so there's time to walk through it slowly. Admission is €7–16 depending on your status. Check kunsthauswien.com for current hours.

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