The MuseumsQuartier includes various museums that host art exhibitions. It also has its own indoor MQ Freiraum exhibition space that features contemporary art tackling contemporary themes.
- Intermittent exhibitions
- Focus on video, photo & art installations
- Strong on sociopolitical commentary
- Current/future exhibitions:
- all this by herman de vries (March 19th to August 10th)
- Anatomy of an Endless Scene by Huda Takriti (ditto)
- Book a tour of the MQ*
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Art and commentary
(View of Ursula Biemann’s 2024/2025 Becoming Earth exhibition © MuseumsQuartier; photo by Simon Veres)
Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier (MQ) complex might best be described as a home for modern & contemporary art and culture. Not just a vehicle for displaying that art (see, for example the MQ Art Box or Leopold Museum) or expressing that culture but also a place for both to come into being.
Several dozen culture-oriented initiatives, groups, businesses, agencies and similar work there. From bookshops and film festivals to games makers and an extensive artists-in-residence programme.
The MQ also has its own MQ Freiraum exhibition area, located within an outer tract that once formed part of the Imperial stables (back when contemporary art meant a nice portrait of an Archduke in a wig).
The exhibitions within feature all forms of visual arts but with a small bias toward installations and video art. Expect to see both established and up and coming artists.
Equally, those same exhibitions tend to tackle themes critical to today’s world and offer their own form of sociopolitical commentary.
As such, you might drop in and discover everything from album posters to three-dimensional fabric art.
So what’s on at the moment?
Current/next exhibition(s)
- all this: five decades of works in various media (including text) by herman de vries that focus on nature as an entity with agency and nature as a source of its own art (March 19th to August 10th)
- Anatomy of an Endless Scene: two video works by Huda Takriti addressing the interplay of power, time, historiography, and transmission (March 19th to August 10th)
Selected past exhibitions
- Becoming Earth: Ursula Biemann addressed issues around indigenous peoples in the Amazon, notably the impacts of oil and mining industries, unfettered trade and globalisation on their living space. Biemann also explored how indigenous knowledge and experience might help solve pressing challenges of the future
- Point Zero: an installation by Rodrigo Braga used the symbolism of stones to reflect the (often contradictory) relationship between humanity and the environment
- Resistance, Flood, Fire, Resistance: photographs by Beate Gütschow of natural disasters but after the mass media have long moved on
- From a Tongue we are Losing: photographs by Laure Winants exploring light and colour in the Arctic
- Play and Punish: photographs by Karolina Wojtas, asking questions of schools and education through surrealist images
- On Abortion: photographs by Laia Abril exploring the consequences of restrictions on access to abortions
- Schattenwinde: photographs by Gundula Schulze Eldowy featuring her austere images of Germany taken across 1977-1990
- Me and mine: photographs by Mari Katayama, who uses her own body to explore issues around society and concepts of beauty
- Crossing Lines. Politics of Images: part of the Foto Wien festival, which had its 2023 HQ in the MQ. A timely examination of photos in political communication and image projection, touching on such topics as distribution & social media, authenticity, and blurred lines of reality vis a vis propaganda.
- LandRush. Ventures into Global Agriculture: video installation(s) created by Frauke Huber and Uwe H. Martin. A look at modern agriculture from various perspectives, exploring the consequences for climate change, biodiversity, soil quality and water resources.
- Oasis: Karina Mendreczky and Katalin Kortmann Járay created an installation consisting of an almost fae-like collection that flowed with themes around life, death and our relationship to nature. Built from sculptures, photos, fabrics, drawings, and audio.
- No Dancing Allowed: a collection of multimedia installations viewing dance as a social and emotional need. Dance as a metaphor for expression, particularly freedom of expression. And all in the context of COVID-related restrictions and those imposed by the culture and politics of modern society.
- Overground Resistance: a selection of art as activism or activism as art. Pieces from various countries, created by those working in or with climate justice movements.
- Approximation by Bilderbuch: various artistic creations that came about through collaborations with or around the successful Austrian band Bilderbuch. A paeon to open minds, collaboration and rejecting the limits of your own metier. Unusually for Q21, this one needed an entrance ticket.
- Japan Unlimited: contemporary Japanese art at the interface between Honne (your genuine feelings and emotions) and Tatemae (those you can display in public according to the unwritten rules of society).
How to get there
Follow the travel tips at the end of the MuseumsQuartier page. As you stand outside facing the main entrance, turn left and follow the outside wall until you see the signs for the exhibitions.
Address: Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna | Website