New Museum Tipped for the Top 

This new addition to the city’s museumscape has been very eagerly awaited, and rightly so. Currently taking shape in the heart of Vienna and due to open in early 2022, an all-new museum will provide a fitting home for the Heidi Horten Collection, one of Europe’s leading private art collections. For the past 30 years, patron of the arts Heidi Goëss-Horten, one of just a handful of female museum founders worldwide, has been bringing together an impressive cross-section of art history from early modernism to the present day – stars of the show include works by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Marc Chagall and Gerhard Richter. 

Her outstanding collection will take up residence in the Stöckl building – a venerable Palais in the old town – at the Hanuschhof, which is nestled between the Vienna State Opera, Albertina and Burggarten. Work on converting the space started in summer 2020; the interior of the building has been completely gutted and the facade painstakingly restored and greened. In all, some 1,500m² of exhibition space is available, spread across three seemingly floating levels. Contemporary art is also set to play a key role at the new museum. 

Hanuschgasse 3, 1010 Vienna, www.hortencollection.com   

Reopening Highlight 

Prince Eugene’s former summer residence on Rennweg, a striking element of the Baroque Belvedere complex, will open its magnificent doors to museumgoers once again following an extensive renovation project. Completed in 1716, the Lower Belvedere – including opulent state rooms – was brought in line with contemporary international museum standards over the past few months. A new restaurant and numerous accessibility and technological upgrades will ensure a world-class museum experience. The original scope of the renovation project was expanded to take advantage of the pandemic. 

The Lower Belvedere will reopen in January 2022 with a flagship exhibition looking at Viennese psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s special influence on the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. 

Rennweg 6, 1030 Vienna, www.belvedere.at  

A Fresh Look at Medical History 

Following its closure for refurbishment, the Josephinum in the ninth district, which contains the collections of the Medical University of Vienna, will reopen in 2022. Work to remodel and extend the heritage-listed 18th century building as a dedicated museum of medical history got under way in 2019. The main focus of the project was to restore the original classicist masterpiece to its former glory. The centerpiece of the Josephinum – a historic nine-meter-tall auditorium – will be fully rebuilt, with the square outside and the main entrance set to be reconfigured. 

Constructed in 1785 under Emperor Joseph II, it was originally a military surgery academy for training doctors and midwives. Its collection of medical artifacts is unparalleled in Europe. Multiple permanent exhibitions are planned for the future.  

Währinger Strasse 25, 1090 Vienna, www.josephinum.ac.at   

Post Script

A new public space dedicated to culture is currently taking shape in the Stubenviertel in the first district, adding yet another cosmopolitan hotspot to the capital’s portfolio. Under this new project, the former post office headquarters will be transformed into the Lebendiges Haus. The sprawling complex of buildings which served as the HQ of Austrian Post between 1850 and 2011 is being completely refurbished in preparation for its future as a mixed-use facility featuring apartments, shops, hospitality providers, offices, coworking facilities and cultural spaces. 

Responsibility for its artistic design falls to the artist and perception researcher sha and his team of Vienna-based creatives. At present, work is pressing ahead to create a new kind of contemporary museum in various locations inside the historic building. A multi-dimensional media artwork in the Dominikanerhof will add a focal point in the form of an immersive 360° experience for all the senses. Tenants will move into the various parts of the complex as the individual phases are completed. The cultural offering will be available from summer/fall 2022 – free of charge and round the clock. 

Dominikanerbastei 11, 1010 Vienna, www.sha-art.com  

Museum for a Pioneer 

Another of Vienna’s leading ladies is set to be honored with her own museum in 2022: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Designed according to the pioneering architect’s personal requirements, her last apartment in Vienna’s fifth district – where she lived for three decades – is currently being refurbished and restored. Recently heritage listed, the 55m² apartment with 35m² terrace is due to open to visitors in summer 2022. In its new guise as the Schütte Lihotzky Center, the space will open once a week and feature temporary focuses curated by the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W). 

Schütte-Lihotzky, who died in the city in 2000 a short time before her 103rd birthday, left a lasting legacy. Remembered as a social housing pioneer, she was also an advocate of women’s liberation, peace activist and resistance fighter against National Socialism. A major milestone in her design career came in 1926 when she invented the fitted kitchen, which she dubbed the Frankfurt Kitchen. But Loos protégée Schütte-Lihotzky vehemently refused to be pigeonholed by her greatest invention.

Franzensgasse 16/40, 1050 Vienna, www.schuette-lihotzky.at 

Major Exhibitions in Vienna in 2022 

Vienna’s world-beating cultural institutions have a bumper crop of fascinating exhibitions in store in 2022. A chronological overview of the shows ahead. 

Dec 15, 2021-Jun 19, 2022: Josef Hoffmann. Progress Through Beauty / MAK – Museum of Applied Arts  

The MAK is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) with a major temporary exhibition. For the first time, the architect, designer, teacher and exhibition designer’s oeuvre will be given the full attention it deserves. Featuring around 1,000 exhibits, the show takes in some of his most important projects, including the Palais Stoclet in Brussels and Purkersdorf Sanatorium. A co-founder of the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte collective, he set new standards with his revolutionary designs and buildings. 

MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Stubenring 5, 1010 Vienna, www.mak.at 

Jan 28-May 29, 2022: Dalí – Freud. An Obsession / Lower Belvedere 

Salvador Dalí’s world-famous surrealist back catalog is shaped by the undeniable influence that Sigmund Freud once had on his work. In 1938, Dalí met Freud – who had fled from Vienna – in London in an encounter that would prove momentous: around 100 works – paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, books, newspapers and letters – reveal what happens when psychoanalysis meets surrealism. A temporary exhibition to mark the grand reopening of the Lower Belvedere. 

Lower Belvedere, Rennweg 6, 1030 Vienna, www.belvedere.at 

From Feb 3, 2022: Hot Questions – Cold Storage. The New Permanent Collection at the Architekturzentrum Wien / Az W 

Austria’s only museum dedicated purely to architecture will be mounting a new permanent exhibition in 2022. Seven differently themed chapters are at its heart, with a present-day hot topic forming the centerpiece of each. Models, sketches, furniture, fabrics, documents and films run the rule over the nation’s architectural history against the backdrop of cultural, social, economic and technical influences. The show covers a broad spectrum: from Red Vienna to contemporary topics that touch on ecological and gender-based questions. 

Az W – Architekturzentrum Wien, MuseumsQuartier, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna, www.azw.at  

Feb 10-Jun 19, 2022: David Hockney: INSIGHTS. Reflecting the Tate Collection / Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien 

Austria is hosting its first comprehensive show on the work of British artist David Hockney. Hockney, one of the most versatile and influential contemporary artists, has been experimenting with painting, sketching and graphics for six decades. Key works The First Marriage (1962),  Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy (1970-1971) and My Parents (1977) will be on show in Vienna, out on loan from the Tate. 

Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien, Freyung 8, 1010 Vienna, www.kunstforumwien.at.  

Feb 18-Jun 19, 2022: Edvard Munch. In Dialog / Albertina 

Following on from its record-breaking Edvard Munch (1863-1944) exhibitions in 2003 and 2015, the Albertina will once again be turning its attention to the work of the great Norwegian painter in early 2022. This time round, the main focus will be on his late period in a show featuring around 60 masterpieces by the artist himself, alongside 20th-century greats such as Andy Warhol and Georg Baselitz, as well as leading contemporary artists like Marlene Dumas, Peter Doig, Miriam Cahn and Tracey Emin. 

Albertina, Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Vienna, www.albertina.at 

Mar 9-27, 2022: FOTO WIEN / various locations 

In March, the biennial Foto Wien photography festival will be putting the broad spectrum covered by the genre in the viewfinder once again. Organized and curated by the Kunst Haus Wien, more than 160 exhibitions and events will play out at participating museums, galleries, project spaces and billboards in public spaces. Content-wise, the lead topics for the 2022 iteration of the festival will be Rethinking Nature and Female Photographers. 

Mar 12-Aug 20, 2022: The Air. Air, Breath and Wind in Contemporary Art / Kunst Haus Wien 

In addition to the photography festival, at the start of the year all eyes at the Kunst Haus Wien will be on the topic of “air”, thanks to a new exhibition that brings together around 20 contemporary international artistic and photographic positions looking at different aspects of air, breath and wind. 

Kunst Haus Wien, Untere Weissgerberstrasse 13, 1030 Vienna, www.kunsthauswien.com and www.photo.vienna.info  

Mar 16-Jun 26, 2022: Ai Weiwei. In Search of Humanity / Albertina modern 

In 2022, the Albertina modern will host Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s first comprehensive museum exhibition in Vienna. The show focuses on aspects of humanity and artistic responsibility in Ai Weiwei’s work, courtesy of pieces created during a career spanning almost four decades. Topics such as surveillance, censorship, human rights and freedom of opinion are all under the microscope. 

Albertina modern, Karlsplatz 5, 1010 Vienna, www.albertina.at/albertina-modern 

Mar 18-Nov 1, 2022: True to Life. Realist Painting from 1850 to 1950 / Upper Belvedere 

Is everything that appears realistic to us actually true to life? A special exhibition goes in search of answers to this question, showing paintings that are synonymous with real-life while also holding up a mirror to the social environments they were created in. Numerous rare works that only seldom go on show can be seen, including Édouard Frédéric Wilhelm Richter’s Oriental Woman (ca. 1875), Emanuel Baschny’s Man Reading (1905), Erich Miller-Hauenfels’ Courtyard among Urban Houses (1934) and Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Mathilde Trau (ca. 1893). 

Upper Belvedere, Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 27, 1030 Vienna, www.belvedere.at 

Mar 25-Jul 10, 2022: Kubin On the Couch. Confessions of a Tortured Soul / Leopold Museum 

In spring, Alfred Kubin (1877-1959) will be in the spotlight at the Leopold Museum. The topics covered by the Austrian sketch artist, illustrator and writer’s work appear to be more apposite than ever before: violence, warlike destruction, pestilence, natural disasters, manipulation of the masses and other depths of the human condition. 

Oct 14, 2022-Feb 27, 2023: Tilla Durieux. Century Witness and her Roles / Leopold Museum 

In fall, the dazzling life of Tilla Durieux (1880-1971) will take center stage. The Vienna-born theater and movie star was one of most portraited women of her time, sitting for countless artists – including Auguste Renoir, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer and Lotte Jacobi. Rare archive material and pieces taken out on loan from other museums and private collections retrace her unusual career. 

Leopold Museum, MuseumsQuartier Wien, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna, www.leopoldmuseum.org 

May 13-Oct 2, 2022: The Animal in You – Creatures in (and outside) the mumok Collection / mumok 

What role do animals have to play in fine art? This is the question that the mumok will be tackling in 2022 in a spring exhibition that looks at animal magnetism and associated topics such as dominance and control.  

Oct 22, 2022-Jan 21, 2024: On Stage / mumok 

The mumok will also be celebrating its 60th anniversary with a special exhibition in 2022: On Stage will explore theater and stage-based forms of performance in art since the 1960s. At that time, performative and actionist artistic genres were starting to proliferate. Presented in front of audiences, these expression media took on a distinctly stage-like dimension. 

Museum of modern art ludwig foundation vienna, MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna, www.mumok.at 

May 19-Oct 23, 2022: Instantly! Street Photography in Vienna / Wien Museum MUSA 

What did everyday life look like on the streets of the city from the 1860s to the present day? This exhibition documents numerous excerpts from urban life, giving us an insight into the constantly evolving capital through a collection of fascinating and previously unseen pictures. It is a portrait of a city and a pictorial journey back in time rolled into one, chronicled via early urban photography all the way through to the modern-day age of Instagram. 

Wien Museum MUSA, Felderstrasse 6-8, 1010 Vienna, www.wienmuseum.at 

Sep 20, 2022-Jan 8, 2023: Artistic Rivalry. Cellini, Rubens, Goya / Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna 

Contests have always shaped the world of art. Competition defines artists’ approaches to one another and their historic forebears as well as interactions between patrons. The major fall exhibition at the KHM uncovers some of the major duals – and duets – from the history of art. Works from antiquity, the Renaissance and Baroque periods will go on show alongside one another, with many of them on display for the first time in Austria. 

Oct 18, 2022-Jan 29, 2023: Highlights of the Imperial Collection. Masterpieces from the Al Thani Collection / Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna 

Opening in fall, the museum is also presenting a prestigious private collection. 250 exhibits – from the ancient world to the present day – brought together by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani will be juxtaposed in a compelling dialog with pieces from the imperial Habsburg collection. Among the priceless objects on display are an 18th-century emerald brooch that belonged to Catherine The Great. 

Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Maria-Theresien-Platz, 1010 Vienna, www.khm.at

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