How does art guide us through the treacherous waters of the present? How do we guide art through the shallows of political turmoil?

With this year’s theme, NAVIGATING ANGST, VIENNA ART WEEK 2026 focuses on an experience that is omnipresent yet rarely articulated with precision: angst.

Not merely as a symptom of a time of crisis, but as its very structure. Not as a state of emergency, but as the background noise of the present: ecological, political, technological, physical.

VIENNA ART WEEK takes the present, with all its contradictions, seriously and invites us to engage with it without letting it overwhelm us. Perhaps this is precisely where a form of orientation lies: not in reassurance, but in the ability to endure complexity — and to remain capable of acting within it.

The 21st edition of VIENNA ART WEEK centered on learning—not as the simple accumulation of knowledge, but as an ongoing process of recognition, unlearning, and rethinking.

The theme LEARNING SYSTEMS invited us to reflect on the structures that shape how knowledge is formed, transmitted, and transformed—from inherited traditions to emerging technologies—and to explore new perspectives collectively.