Foto Arsenal Wien — Zanele Muholi: We Are Here
- The file
- The practical details Claire checked before this went into the index.
- Where
- Foto Arsenal Wien, 1070 Vienna
- Price
- entry €8
- Indoor
- Photography
- Contemporary art
- LGBTQIA+ representation
- 3rd district
Six Series, Two Decades
Zanele Muholi describes themself not as an artist but as a visual activist — a distinction that matters. For over twenty years, they have made Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people visible, first in South Africa and then globally. The exhibition brings together six key series that trace this arc.
Being (2006) focuses on intimate lesbian relationships — love, trust, everyday life. The photographs reject the politics of representation that turns queer Black women into consumable spectacle; instead they create what Muholi calls "a body of meaning that is welcomed by us as a community."
Faces and Phases (2006–ongoing) is a collaborative archive of several hundred black-and-white portraits of Black LGBTQIA+ people, each accompanied by personal testimony. It is memory made visible, presence made permanent.
Other series explore gender, identity, and the body — work created through intensive exchange with the communities portrayed, not about them.
Why This Matters Now
South Africa was the first country in the world to guarantee constitutional equality regardless of sexual orientation. Yet discrimination, exclusion, and violence remain everyday realities for queer people there. Muholi's photographs are an act of witnessing and an assertion: we exist, we belong, we are here.
The exhibition includes an accompanying program of tours, workshops, discussions, and collaborations with local institutions including the Queer Museum Vienna, the Austrian Film Museum, and MEZEKERE — spaces for deeper encounter and conversation.
More in Don't Miss
The Lemon Twigs — Flex
- When
- 30 September 2026
- Where
- 1st · Innere Stadt
The Lemon Twigs are the D'Addario brothers from Long Island, making melodic baroque pop with a vintage American rock sensibility. They've built a devoted following in indie music over the last few years, playing small rooms where people actually listen. Flex is the right room for them: 500 capacity, the canal outside, no bad angles. They play September 30. Tickets via Live Nation.
Read the note →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.
Read the note →Long Night of Museums 2026
- When
- 3 October 2026
Vienna's annual museum marathon opens over 130 venues across the city for a single night, 6 PM to midnight on October 3. One €19 ticket covers most institutions — children under 12 enter free. The Kunsthistorisches Museum, National Library, and Leopold Museum offer English-language guided tours. Most museums add special programs: restoration demonstrations, workshops, performances, even VR experiences. Expect crowds (typically 150,000 people) but also an unusual atmosphere — the city's cultural weight becomes tangible when all these spaces stay open late and thousands move between them on foot. The ticket also works as a public transport pass from 5:30 PM to 12:30 AM the next morning.
Read the note →