What can you say about the line in art? Rather a lot. The Heidi Horten Collection shows how this formative element has evolved into a multifaceted, flexible tool, motif, and vehicle in all sorts of genres and media.
- Features works by numerous notable names
- Basquiat, Klimt, Warhol, Hockney & many more
- Runs Sept 19, 2025 – Mar 8, 2026
- Book entrance tickets* to the collection
- See also:
A fundamental element
(Henri Matisse, Portrait de Rosabianca Skira, 1948 © Succession H. Matisse / Bildrecht, Wien 2024)
Simplicity hides complexity, as anyone knows who has tried to unravel the statement “I love you.”
So we have the line…a connection between two points in space. Perhaps straight. Perhaps not (especially if you’re Hundertwasser, who described the straight line as godless).
Think of the line in art, and we imagine the outline in drawing: a tool to define a form. But we swiftly move into complexity. Even in a simple drawing, shading lines serve as a means of giving structure and three-dimensionality to the image.
(Jean-Michel Basquiat, Red Savoy, 1983 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2024)
And that’s just the beginning of a voyage through the role of this fundamental element in art, as the The Line exhibition at the Heidi Horten Collection demonstrates.
The simple definer of reality becomes, for example, a tool in abstraction or a subject in its own right.
Perhaps the line slips the constraining leash of the stroke and paper or canvas to appear in performance art or installations, as in Richard Long’s 1967 A Line Made by Walking.
(Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale Attese, 1966 © Fondation Lucio Fontana, Milano, Bildrecht Wien)
Or the opposing duality as both connector and separator allows the line’s use in commentary and metaphor.
The exhibition tackles the multifaceted nature and artistic evolution of the line in a series of themed sections, and it features numerous works by renowned artists creating in different decades and various contexts.
We’ll see, for example, Paul Klee’s 1930 Geschwister.
(Paul Klee, Geschwister, 1930, Heidi Horten Collection © Bildrecht, Wien, 2023)
That work feels particularly important in this context, since a text about drawing by the artist provides a starting point for the exhibition and, if I recall right, Geschwister won the popular vote when the Heidi Horten Collection selected works for its permanent exhibition.
The other names whose works illustrate each section promise both diversity and quality.
Basquiat and Bulloch. Haring and Hockney. Fontana and Freud. Klimt and Kowanz. Schiele and Shiota (with a site-specific participative installation). Picasso, Warhol, Degas, and more. An excellent line up (ba dum tish, I’m here all week, try the salmon souffle).
Dates, tickets & tips
Walk the line from September 19th, 2025 to March 8th, 2026. An entrance ticket from or for the Heidi Horten Collection includes the exhibition.
(Booking service provided by Tiqets.com*, who I am an affiliate of)
A couple of artists featured have exhibitions elsewhere in Vienna for at least some of the time.
Light artist Brigitte Kowanz, for example, has a solo exhibition at the Albertina with provisional dates of July 18th to November 9th, 2025. Klimt and Schiele are, of course, mainstays over at the Belvedere and Leopold art museums.
How to get there
The location is very central and a neighbour to the State Opera House, Albertina, and Hofburg palace complex. Check my overview page for travel tips, but the tram stop Burgring (on the 1, 2, D and 71 lines) or Karlsplatz subway station (on the U1, U2 and U4 lines) are strong options.
Address: Hanuschgasse 3, 1010 Vienna