Vienna’s blockbuster winter exhibitions
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Michaelina Wautier. Painter
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, September 30, 2025 – February 22, 2026
The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna honors a great Old Master: its major autumn exhibition is dedicated to the outstanding Flemish Baroque artist Michaelina Wautier (c. 1620 – post 1682), who was forgotten for far too long. Almost all of Wautier’s surviving works (including 29 paintings) are being exhibited in Vienna for the first time. She is also being presented on a par with masters of her time such as Peter Paul Rubens and Anthonis van Dyck. Wautier’s works – large-format historical paintings, portraits, drawings and allegories – were misunderstood, forgotten or attributed to her male colleagues over the centuries. Some are now being shown to the public for the very first time.
Marina Abramović
Albertina Modern, October 10, 2025 – March 1, 2026
Her provocative performances have helped Marina Abramović (*1946), one of the most influential contemporary artists of our time, to make headlines worldwide over the past 50 years. Now, the Albertina modern, with support from the Kunstforum Wien, is dedicating a spectacular retrospective to her, curated in close collaboration with the Serbian artist herself. Individual rooms are devoted to different themes. Her most important historical performances, in which Abramović repeatedly explored her physical and psychological limits, will be recreated in daily reenactments. (Includes depictions of violence, self-harm and nudity. Recommended for ages 16 and up.)
Hidden Modernism. The Fascination with the Occult around 1900.
Leopold Museum, September 4, 2025 – January 18, 2026
The Leopold Museum is opening up a previously little-explored chapter, shedding light on occultism around 1900. The rapid pace of industrialization at the time only fueled the longing for alternatives. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and composer Richard Wagner led the way. In Vienna too, esotericism and spirituality, although rejected by both church and emperor, found fertile ground within the avant-garde of the art world. This is a complex subject area, being addressed in a museum in Austria for the first time. 180 works dating from 1860 to 1930 by a total of 85 artists (including Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Edvard Munch, and many others) offer a fascinating insight into the subject.
Cézanne, Monet, Renoir. French Impressionism from the Langmatt Museum
Lower Belvedere, September 25, 2025 – February 8, 2026
This autumn, the magnificent Baroque halls of the Lower Belvedere will be home to a lineup of French Impressionists. On display will be masterpieces by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas. These works come from the collection of the Swiss Villa Langmatt, which is currently being renovated and whose collection is touring Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jenny and Sidney Brown started building one of the earliest and most extensive private collections of French Impressionism in Switzerland. (Be sure to reserve a time-slot ticket!)
Gothic Modern. Munch, Beckmann, Kollwitz
Albertina, September 19, 2025 – January 11, 2026
The major autumn exhibition at the Albertina brings together modernism and the Gothic. Around 200 works will underline how numerous modern art stars such as Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele and Max Beckmann drew inspiration from the often quite dark Middle Ages. The exhibition explores a development from 1870 to 1920, a period when many deliberately allowed themselves to be influenced by the medieval aesthetic shaped by masters such as Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer. An extraordinary juxtaposition of two formative epochs of art.
Even more art and culture
In autumn, Vienna is not only home to numerous blockbuster exhibitions; between September and November, the city will also be transformed into a center for art fairs, design and photography events.
