NAVIGATING ANGST: What Role Can Museums and Art Institutions Play Today? – Part 3

VIENNA ART WEEK is organized by Art Cluster Vienna, an association representing Vienna’s leading art institutions. We asked our members: What does this year’s theme, “Navigating Angst,” mean to them? Here are their answers.

“Anxiety,” says Kierkegaard, “is the dizziness of freedom.”

It cannot be taken away from modern humans. The challenge of dealing with an indeterminate future and the imposition of living one’s own life in a self-determined way are part of the condition moderne.

Modernity has piled up infinite possibilities and incredible wealth, but at the same time the major social questions that result in concrete fears remain unresolved.

Art knows both – this is how it navigates the dialectic of modernity.

Fear is not merely a shortcoming or a threat, but also a productive force that fosters reflection, sensitivity, and new perspectives.

However, to avoid being paralyzed and controlled by it, engaging with art is considered one of the counterstrategies.

Art offers guidance beyond clear-cut answers and creates distance—in the best sense of the word—to recognize, dispel, or overcome fears.

Angst is usually perceived as something negative, yet it can also be a productive force: it sharpens our awareness and directs our attention to questions that demand consideration.

In engaging with this powerful emotion, artists have repeatedly created outstanding and profound works.

The Heidi Horten Collection sees itself as a place of experience, insight, reflection, and encounter. Knowledge, dialogue, and the shared experience of art create connection and trust — qualities that can also help us deal with angst.

Forests without birdsong. Rivers without water. Withering crops. The ecological crisis is frightening for many.

Art cannot save the world, but it can offer orientation when certainties unravel. It creates space for new visions of the future and understands hope as a creative force for cultural renewal.

For the KunstHausWien, ‘Navigating Angst’ means focusing on possibilities—on the potential for growth and regeneration at the heart of our exhibition Seeds.

An exhibition contains multitudes, some more compelling than others. It holds moments of beauty, of discontent, and of ambivalence. Tensions and contradictions become integral to the experience itself.

Museums can create environments that invite encounters with the unknown, encouraging us to embrace complexity and uncertainty while remaining open and curious.

Vienna Actionism presents one of the most radical art movements of the 20th century. Its radicalism is partially rooted in the intense engagement of its protagonists— Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler—with both the social and the existential anxieties, angsts, and fears of post-war Austria.

Through the exploration of corporeal fears, such as the fear of mutilation, injury and castration, these artists negotiated deep-seated elementary fears such as loss and death.

The WIENER AKTIONISMUS MUSEUM transports these artistic endeavors into the present and examines their potential in addressing today’s fears and anxieties.