A House Full of Fears – 22nd VIENNA ART WEEK
Sabine B. Vogel visited this year's VIENNA ART WEEK exhibition, HOUSE OF NAVIGATING ANGST. Read her impressions here.
Tony Oursler, Eye-scifi, Sakshi-eye, Trash eye, Digitalvideo, 1996. HOUSE OF NAVIGATING ANGST © VIENNA ART WEEK 2026. Foto: Wolfgang Thaler
Whether in Prague or Tokyo—more than thirty cities now host a cross-institutional art week. This globally successful format began in Vienna in 2005, initiated by Robert Punkenhofer in collaboration with the Dorotheum.
What began as a small event has since grown to include an ever-increasing number of institutions, galleries, open artist studios, and guided tours. This year, for its 22nd edition, there are 70 program partners and over 100 events, including inclusive offerings.
From the very beginning, they wanted to show “just how vibrant the art scene in Vienna is,” emphasizes Dorotheum partner Martin Böhm. After all, Vienna should be perceived not only as a city of music but also as a city of art. Since 2009, the highlight has been a thematically curated group exhibition held in temporarily repurposed buildings.
Press conference for the 22nd VIENNA ART WEEK: from left to right: Martin Böhm (Dorotheum), Anne Zühlke (VIENNA ART WEEK), Robert Punkenhofer (VIENNA ART WEEK), Fatima Hellberg (mumok), Monika Pessler (Sigmund Freud Museum), Blanca Amorós (artist). Photo: eSeL.at - Lorenz Seidler
This year’s title is “House of Navigating Angst.” Böhm emphasizes that it’s less about fears themselves and more about the act of navigating. “We live in anxious times,” explains artistic director Punkenhofer at the press conference, adding that fear has always been a theme in art history—one need only think of Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Last Judgment” (c. 1500). Program partner Monika Pessler, director of the Freud Museum, explains it from a psychoanalyst’s perspective: Fear can be a driving force; it triggers defense mechanisms.
Hieronymus Bosch, The Last Judgment Triptych (detail). Credit: Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.
Of course, the 38 artists in the exhibition don’t react in such a direct way. Invited by Punkenhofer and co-curator Anne Zühlke, their works are distributed from the basement to the top floor throughout the abandoned rooms of the four-story Gründerzeit apartment building, located directly on the busy Gürtel just before Westbahnhof. The artworks appear like aliens in this setting. They address topics such as racist violence, as in Kara Walker’s work; censorship and control, as in Miao Ying’s; and fragility, as in Isa Melsheimer’s.
Exhibition View – HOUSE OF NAVIGATING ANGST © VIENNA ART WEEK 2026. Foto: Wolfgang Thaler
Alina Kleytman’s black sculptures stand in the basement. The wall text explains that they are “casts of the testicles of a deceased Ukrainian friend,” which look more than a little eerie here on the damp floor between rough brick walls. With her sculptures made of silicone, fabric, and stainless steel, Sophie Hirsch explores themes of “support and restriction, flexibility and rigidity, control and unpredictability” as she attaches silicone casts to a railing system. Marlene Coates’ female figures, combined with collages, are like a fading memory.
Alina Kleytman, GROWING THE CROWN, 2026. Photo: eSeL.at - Lorenz Seidler
None of these works provide concrete answers to the challenge of navigating fear. But they serve as signposts within these apartments, which still bear traces of the sometimes shockingly poor living conditions of their former residents. Torn-up floors reveal thick tree trunks used as floor supports, while peculiar fixtures bear witness to the joys of self-expression. “This isn’t a ‘chamber of horrors,’” Punkenhofer emphasizes. But at the very least, the former apartments here are indeed something to be afraid of.
HOUSE OF NAVIGATING ANGST—the VIENNA ART WEEK exhibition 2026
Goldschlagstraße 1, 1150 Vienna
November 7–13, 2026, daily from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
