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Secession Podcast

Vienna Secession

Secession Podcast is a digital series created by the Secession in 2022. In conversations with artists, curators, and theorists, the podcast series offers interesting insights into the Secession’s exhibition programme of twelve to fifteen contemporary art shows every year. The program also features discussions on current issues, as well as experimental sound formats and – creating an oral history archive – conversations between members of the Association of Visual Artists, who share their personal recollections and reflect on the 125-year history of this unique artist-run institution.

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#89
October 22 · 13 min
Lap-See Lam, Haris Giannouras – Reading
Curator Haris Giannouras reads a letter addressed to the artist Lap-See Lam. The artist reads her response which was written following the opening of her exhibition 192 Wing Lok Street at Secession. Their exchange is scored by parts of the sound work included in the exhibition composed by Linus Hillborg & Marlena Salonen. Lap-See Lam 192 Wing Lok Street 11.9. – 22.11.2026 Lap-See Lam currently lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Lam’s work traverses diverse genres and disciplines, from video installation to live performance, blending contemporary technology with traditional references and methods. Lam was the recipient of the Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award 2025 and represented Sweden at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2024. In 2021, she was awarded the Dagens Nyheter Culture Prize. Recent solo exhibitions include Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden (2026); PHI Foundation, Montreal; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (all in 2025); The Power Plant, Toronto, and Studio Voltaire, London (both in 2024); Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo; Swiss Institute, New York; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; and Lidköping Konsthall, Lidköping (all in 2023); Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2022, 2018); Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim (2021); and Moderna Museet Malmö (2018–2019). Lam has participated in group exhibitions at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2026); Ghost 2565, Bangkok (2022); KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2022); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2021); PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv (2021); Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala (2020); Performa 19, New York (2019); Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2019); Luleå Biennial, Luleå (2018); Gerðarsafn Kópavogur Art Museum, Kópavogur (2018); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2017). Haris Giannouras works closely with artists to make exhibitions, artworks, publications, and events. He is currently working at the Secession in Vienna. Before that he was working at MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST in Frankfurt, where he contributed to the exhibition There is no there there, a large-scale survey dedicated to artists with refugee, exile, and migration backgrounds who lived and worked in divided Germany from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. Prior to that, he worked at Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, where he co-curated exhibitions and produced publications with Hiwa K, Ghislaine Leung, and Studio for Propositional Cinema. Recent projects include work with Cana Bilir-Meier, Atelier Bow-Wow, Andrea Büttner, Jamie Crewe, Beatrice Gibson, Onyeka Igwe, Duane Linklater, Reba Maybury, Mire Lee, and Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, and the Estate of Suzan Pitt. Haris Giannouras is currently pursuing a doctorate dissertation researching quoting and discursivity in painting after 1990. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Soundtrack: recorded in the exhibition space, with music by Linus Hillborg and Marlena Salonen Executive Producer: Haris Giannouras, Bettina Spörr
#88
August 13 · 30 min
Artists: Marianna Simnett in conversation with Bettina Spörr
Marianna Simnett shares insights into her conceptual thinking and the creative process behind her exhibition Circus at the Secession, a multimedia exhibition that brought together light, sound, and sculptural works drawing on her Yugoslav heritage. This episode was recorded on 6 March 2026, the day after the opening. Marianna Simnett Circus 6.3. – 31.5.2026 Personal references, including a work that was inspired by her Jewish-Croatian grandfather’s experience during the Holocaust, intersect with nods to folkloric bogeywomen, who may interchangeably figure as threat or ally, and the traditional Balkan skirt that stages the delicate play of revealing and concealing intimate body parts. The show’s Circus theme manifests itself in a variety of ways throughout the presentation: in the maniacal spinning of a skirt overhead, alluding to a circus tent; in a stage for a performance; in the sound of torturous laughter; or in dazzling lights illuminating a darkened space. Simnett’s practice consistently engages with intense corporeal states – urinating, fainting, the sensation of being tickled – which she taps into in an investigation of pleasure and pain. Having grown up in Great Britain as the daughter of a Croatian mother during the Yugoslav Wars, the artist remembers a recurring fantasy of a urinating figure resembling a folkloric female character who lifts her skirt to expose her genitalia to ward off evil spirits. Translated into neon lighting, this figure oscillates between provocation and defence, between abjection and agency. Neon does not merely illuminate; it intrudes. It screams, demands attention, and collapses distance. Building on the legacy of Bruce Nauman’s neon works, light in Simnett’s Fountain (2026) becomes a body in its own right – one that addresses, agitates, and physically affects the viewer. More Marianna Simnett (b. 1986) is a British-Croatian multidisciplinary artist living and working between Berlin and New York. Her immersive narratives centre around the overlapping and at times incongruous themes of vulnerability, autonomy, control, pain, metamorphosis, and care. Simnett’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo exhibitions at venues including Secession, Vienna (2026); Max Ernst Museum, Brühl (2026); Société, Berlin (2025, 2022); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2024); LAS, Berlin (2023); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Kunsthalle Zürich (2019); MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2018); The New Museum, New York (2018) and Zabludowicz Collection, London (2018). Selected group exhibitions include Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (2023); the 59th Venice Biennale: The Milk of Dreams (2022); Espressioni: The Epilogue, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2022); and Prize of the Böttcherstraße, Kunsthalle Bremen (2022). Bettina Spörr is an art historian and has been a curator at the Secession since 2008. During this time, she has developed more than 60 solo exhibitions in close collaboration with artists and collectives of all generations and from across the globe, including exhibitions with Laura Owens, Francis Alÿs, Nicole Eisenman, Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Carlos Bunga, Christine Sun Kim, Karrabing Film Collective, Delaine Le Bas, Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo, Francis Offman, June Crespo, Marianna Simnett, and Katherine Hubbard. Programmed by the board of the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Bettina Spörr
#87
July 23 · 1 hr 9 min
Artists: Katherine Hubbard in conversation with Sophie Thun
Artists Katherine Hubbard and Sophie Thun explore how Hubbard's work is positioned within queer feminist art and critically engages with the tradition of analogue photography. The conversation was recorded during the installation of the exhibition on 7 June 2026. Katherine Hubbard The Great Room 12.6. – 30.8.2026 How do you capture the inner life of a person whose reality no longer aligns with the outer world? And how do you remain in relation to someone who is both intimately familiar and irreversibly changing? Katherine Hubbard began her five-year project The Great Room in 2020, at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, when her mother, Antonette Berger, became increasingly unwell and the artist became her primary caretaker. It took several months in a time of anxiety and isolation until Berger was diagnosed with LATE (limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy), a form of dementia. Hubbard has described this diagnosis as both necessary and insufficient: a gesture towards control and classification that ultimately fails to grasp the lived, shifting reality of her mother’s condition. It is precisely this gap that the project inhabits. More Katherine Hubbard (b. Philadelphia, PA, 1981) considers analog photography as a mimesis of the body and asks how its procedures might be called upon to investigate social politics, history, and narrative. In her photographs the positioning of one’s body has an essential relationship to how one processes images, exploring this encounter as a time-based experience. Hubbard’s writing practice forms the core of her performances, harnessing the malleability of vision to frame a politics of looking. Hubbard is a 2024 Guggenheim fellow in photography and received her MFA in 2010 from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. She is Associate Professor and MFA Photography Program Director at Pratt Institute, School of Art in Brooklyn, NY. Solo exhibitions include The great room, Company Gallery, New York (2023); Avoid glancing blows, Company Gallery, New York (2020); Katherine Hubbard, Higher Pictures, New York (2018); stages, Baxter St. Camera Club of New York, New York (2017); and Bring your own lights, The Kitchen, New York (2016). Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions including Time Management Techniques, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Ecstatic Land, Marfa Ballroom, Texas; A Collection of Slow Events, The Luminary, St. Louis, Missouri; The Artist’s Museum, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Greater New York, MoMA PS1. Hubbard’s performances have been presented at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas; Konstfack, Stockholm, Sweden; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her work is included as part of the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Sophie Thun (*1985, lives and works in Vienna) works primarily with analogue photography techniques, their spaces, processes and production and exhibition conditions. Thun grew up in Warsaw and completed her master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in both Vienna and Krakow. Thun has been a member of the board of the Secession since 2021, where she had a solo exhibition in 2020; from 2023 to 2025 she was interim professor of the photography class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Since 2026, she has been Professor of Artistic Photography at the Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Bettina Spörr
#86
June 18 · 49 min
Artists: Onyeka Igwe in conversation with Jeanette Pacher
British-Nigerian artist, filmmaker, and researcher Onyeka Igwe talks with curator Jeanette Pacher about her project No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame (2024/26) that lends its title also to her solo show; her interest in sound, especially protest songs, and her love for sacred harp singing, filming in the abandoned Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos, and her iterative practice. Their conversation was recorded on 11 June 2026 at the Secession. Onyeka Igwe No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame 12.6. – 30.8.2026 In the exhibition, two video works unfold in close relation to one another. The film traces the afterlives of British colonialism in Nigeria through the abandoned site of the former Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos – once a key outpost of the Colonial Film Unit’s propaganda apparatus. Today, the building stands in disrepair. The images once housed there are difficult to access – not only due to their material degradation, but also because of a broader reluctance to confront what they contain. Presented on the window front, the moving image blends with the institution’s architecture and urban surroundings, situating its sonic and visual field within the specific conditions of its display. More Onyeka Igwe is a London-born & based moving image artist and researcher. Her work is aimed at the question: how do we live together? Not to provide a rigid answer as such, but to pull apart the nuances of mutuality and co-existence in our deeply individualized world. Onyeka's practice figures sensorial, spatial and counter-hegemonic ways of knowing as central to that task. For her, the body, archives and narratives both oral and textual act as a mode of enquiry that makes possible the exposition of overlooked histories. The work comprises untying strands and threads, anchored by a rhythmic editing style, as well as close attention to the dissonance, reflection and amplification that occurs between image and sound. Solo exhibitions include our generous mother, Tate Britain (2025), history is a living weapon in yr hand, Bonington Gallery and Peer, UK (2024), A Repertoire of Protest (No Dance, No Palaver), MoMA PS1, New York (2023), The Miracle on George Green, The High Line, New York, USA (2022), a so-called archive, LUX, London, UK and THE REAL STORY IS WHAT'S IN THAT ROOM, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada (2021), and Corrections, with Aliya Pabani, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, Canada (2018). Onyeka jointly received the 2025 Film London Jarman Award, was awarded the 2021 Foundwork Artist Prize (2021), Arts Foundation Futures Award for Experimental Short Film (2020) and was the recipient of the Berwick New Cinema Award in 2019. Her video works are screened at film festivals internationally. Jeanette Pacher is a curator at the Vienna Secession since 2007. She is a regular lecturer in the Department of Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, member of the BIG ART advisory board, and from 2023 to 2025, she was jury member of KÖR – Art in Public Space Vienna. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Jeanette Pacher
#85
May 28 · 42 min
Members: Sofie Thorsen, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, and Vanessa Joan Müller in conversation
On the occasion of the exhibition Vienna–Copenhagen. Den Frie Udstilling 2026 at the artists’ association Den Frie in Copenhagen, the co-organisers Sofie Thorsen and Henrik Plenge Jakobsen talk with the art historian and curator Vanessa Joan Müller about, among other things, the model of the artists’ association, its historical roots, and the collaborative work and lively exchange leading up to the current exhibition. For the exhibition, the artists’ association Den Frie Udstilling invited their colleagues from the sister institution, Vienna Secession, to participate as guest exhibitors. 45 artists from Den Frie Udstilling present their work in dialogue with 125 Austrian artist colleagues from Vienna Secession. Like Den Frie, the Secession was founded in the 1890s, and the two institutions remain among the few exhibition venues in Europe still owned and run by artists. As is the case of Den Frie Udstilling, Vienna Secession also counts some of the country’s most prominent artists among its members. More The conversation was recorded on 12 February 2026 at the Secession. Sofie Thorsen was born in Denmark in 1971 and now lives and works in Vienna. Her mostly installation-based work is dedicated to questions of perception, space and the architectural object. She has exhibited her work internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and has produced a number of works for public spaces, as well as publishing artist books and monographs. She is currently an associate professor at the Funen Academy of Fine Arts in Odense, DK. Henrik Plenge Jakobsen’s (DK, 1967) artistic work is based on conceptual sculpture, installation, performance and art in public space. He works with universal themes in economics, history and politics as well as basic existential phenomena such as anxiety, alienation and coexistence. He is educated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Institute des Hautes Etudes en Art Plastique, and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris. He was professor at the Royal Institue of Art in Stockholm, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen. Past exhibitions include: Centre Pompidou (Paris), Den Frie (Copenhagen), Arken Museum of Contemporary Art (Ishøj), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Düsseldorf), South London Gallery (London), SMK - The National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Portikus (Frankfurt am Main), and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk, DK) Vanessa Joan Müller, born in Hamburg (GE) in 1968, is an art historian, curator and author. From 2000 to 2005 she worked as a curator at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, from 2006 to 2011 she was Director of the Kunstverein in Düsseldorf, and from 2013 to 2020 she headed the Dramaturgy Department at Kunsthalle Wien. Selected exhibition projects from recent years include: Stephanie Rizaj: Silent Polyglot, National Gallery of Kosova, Pristina (2026); Dorit Margreiter Choy: Passage, Cukrarna, Ljubljana (2025); Willem Oorebeek & Jieun Lim, Curated by, Vienna (2025); to display, to support, to care, Universitätsgalerie der Angewandten im Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (2024); and Unfamiliar Familiars, Leopold Museum, Vienna (2024). Secession Podcast: Members is a series of conversations featuring members of the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr
#84
May 15 · 34 min
Members: Peter Sandbichler im Gespräch mit Angela Stief
Künstler und Secessionsmitglied Peter Sandbichler spricht mit Angela Stief (Direktorin der Albertina Modern), die seine Arbeit seit den frühen 2000er-Jahren intensiv begleitet und mehrfach mit ihm gearbeitet hat. Im Gespräch widmen sie sich Sandbichlers skulpturaler Praxis, die sich, wie Stief formuliert, „einer eindeutigen Kategorisierung entzieht“ und zugleich von einem tiefen Interesse an Architektur und öffentlichem Raum geprägt ist. Unter anderem spricht Sandbichler darüber, wie ihn Denken und Werk von Buckminster Fuller beeinflusst haben, sowie über sein Interesse an Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, die unmittelbare Begegnungen mit Kunst ermöglicht, große Sichtbarkeit schafft und die Chance bietet, ein sehr vielfältiges Publikum zu erreichen – verbunden mit einem Moment des Zufalls und der Unkontrollierbarkeit. Das Gespräch wurde am 22. Jänner 2026 in der Secession aufgezeichnet. Peter Sandbichler, geboren 1964 in Kufstein, lebt in Wien. Studium an der Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Wien bei Wander Bertoni, anschließend Bildhauerei an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien bei Bruno Gironcoli sowie Neue Medien an der Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt am Main bei Peter Weibel. 1995 Österreichischer Pavillon auf der Biennale di Venezia. Sandbichler ist ein konzeptueller Bildhauer, der gesellschaftspolitische Themen mit grundlegenden Fragen nach der skulpturalen Ästhetik, nach Fläche, Raum und Zeit genauso wie nach Material, Form und Verfahren verknüpft. Mit unterschiedlichen Medien erzeugt er raumgreifende Objekte, Installation wie auch architektonische Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum. Dabei agiert der Künstler an der Schnittstelle von Deformation und Perfektion. Er operiert mit Strukturen, Ornamenten und Rastern, zerlegt diese und generiert neue Ordnungen. www.petersandbichler.com Angela Stief, geboren 1974 in Augsburg (D) ist Kunsthistorikerin, Kuratorin und Kulturpublizistin. Sie studierte Kunstgeschichte und Philosophie. Von 2002 bis 2013 war sie Kuratorin in der Kunsthalle Wien. 2020 übernahm sie die Gastprofessur für kuratorische Praxis an der Universität Linz. Seit 2020 arbeitet sie in der Albertina und wurde 2021 zur Direktorin der Albertina Modern und Chefkuratorin für Kunst der Gegenwart in der Albertina berufen. Sie verfasst zahlreiche Beiträge über Gegenwartskunst für Monografien, Kataloge und Magazine. Ausgewählte Ausstellungen: KAWS. Art&Comix, Franz West (2026), Jenny Saville, Brigitte Kowanz (2025), Eva Beresin, The Beauty of Diversity (2024), Katharina Grosse (2023), Ways of Freedom. Jackson Pollock bis Maria Lassnig (2022), The 80s (2021), Anna Zemánková (2020), Josef Karl Rädler (2018), Leigh Bowery (2013), POWER UP – Female Pop Art (2010), Wangechi Mutu (2008). Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession. Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts. Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard. Schnitt: Paul Macheck Produktion: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr
#83
April 30 · 47 min
Artists: Reba Maybury in conversation with Haris Giannouras
Listen to Reba Maybury and curator Haris Giannouras talk about her new exhibition, about punk and labour, among other things. It was recorded on 4 March 2026, a day before the opening of Reba Maybury’s exhibition I Come in Peace. For her solo exhibition at Secession Maybury worked on a new body of work that engages directly with the misogynistic histories of the institution, confronting Klimt as a figure entrenched in privilege and power, a classical prototype of male artistic genius. In her practice the artist interrogates the intersections of feminism, sexuality, and power. Their discussion touches on the new works produced for the exhibition while addressing issues of punk, sex, labour, and the gendered side of power. Reba Maybury is an artist, writer and dominatrix sometimes working under the name Mistress Rebecca. Her work explores the tension between her perceived strength as an object of fantasy and how through the reality of sex work she attempts to turn this power into something tangible. Much of her art practice is physically created by her submissives through her direction as a way to further the complicated imbalances of labour under sex work, gender and entitlement and an attempt to empower her further than men’s desires, leaving her with more than just a payment from them. Her first novella is named Dining with Humpty Dumpty (2017) and more recently she published Faster Than an Erection (2021 & 2024); From Paris with Love (2024); and Pervert or Detective? (with Lucy McKenzie, 2025). Themes of capital, labour, sexuality, female perversion, desire, banality, pleasure, and bureaucracy as torture and humiliation are essential to her practice. Haris Giannouras works with artists to make exhibitions, artworks, publications and events. He is currently a curator at the Secession in Vienna. Before that he worked at MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST in Frankfurt am Main and Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. Recent projects include work with Studio for Propositional Cinema, Cana Bilir-Meier, Atelier Bow-Wow, Andrea Büttner, Jamie Crewe, Beatrice Gibson, Onyeka Igwe, Hiwa K, Ghislaine Leung, Duane Linklater, Karī Mugo, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, and the Estate of Suzan Pitt. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr
#82
April 15 · 45 min
Artists: Ndidi Dike in conversation with Jeanette Pacher
Ndidi Dike’s exhibition Rare Earth Rare Justice unfolds as a large-scale installation structured around absence, death, and mourning and was developed over a year by the artist in close collaboration with Secession’s tech and curatorial team. Thanks to a “Dialogue Residency” supported by the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, the artist was able to spend two months in Vienna, working in detail on the elements of the installation and the accompanying publication. The extended stay also allowed the artist to reflect on the work and experience how visitors would interact with it once the exhibition had opened. Further chapters will be presented at Färgfabriken, Stockholm and Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. Towards the end of the residency, Ndidi Dike and Jeanette Pacher recorded this podcast as part of an ongoing conversation between the artist and the curator. Ndidi Dike Rare Earth Rare Justice 6.3. – 31.5.2026 At the centre of Rare Earth Rare Justice lies the ongoing exploitation of the African continent’s natural resources, and specifically the extraction of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dike traces how extractive industries fuel ecological devastation, climate change, displacement, and resource-driven conflicts, exposing how global demand for technology is met through systemic violence and dispossession. More Ndidi Dike is an internationally renowned British-Nigerian sculptor and multi-disciplinary artist born in London. Rare Earth Rare Justice is her first major solo exhibition at an Austrian institution. Dike works across mixed media, painting, sculpture, collage, photography, video, and installation. Her practice engages with the social, political, and economic conditions shaping the modern world, with a particular focus on the legacies of colonialism, postcolonialism, forced migration, and global capitalism. Solo exhibitions include Working Through an Impasse, Art Twenty-One, Lagos, NG (2021), In the Guise of Resource Control, Villa Vassilieff, Paris (2017), State of the Nation, National Museum Onikan, Lagos, NG (2016) and Waka-into-Bondage: The Last ¾ Mile, Centre for Contemporary Art CCA, Lagos, NG (2008). Her work has been presented at biennials like Sharjah Biennial 16 (2025), Nigerian Pavilion, 60th Venice Biennale (2024), Sonsbeek 20–24, Arnhem, NL (2021), Lagos Biennial, NG (2019), Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar and 11th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, BR (both 2018). Dike’s work can currently also be seen at Tate Modern, London in the acclaimed group exhibition Nigerian Modernism: Art and Independence (on view until 10 May 2026). www.instagram.com/ndidi.dike/ Jeanette Pacher is a curator at the Vienna Secession since 2007. She is a regular lecturer in the Department of Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, member of the BIG ART advisory board, and from 2023 to 2025, she was jury member of KÖR – Art in Public Space Vienna. Secession Podcast: Artists features artists exhibiting at the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Jeanette Pacher
#81
April 2 · 45 min
Hans Schabus im Gespräch mit Kathrin Rhomberg
Der Künstler Hans Schabus, der in der Secession zweimal ausstellte und im Vorstand tätig war, und die dort langjährig tätige Kuratorin Kathrin Rhomberg sprechen über die Secession als Bezugsraum der eigenen Arbeit, über die Bedeutung der konfrontativen, provokanten Energie der Kunst als Ort der Handlung – und den Ausstellungsraum als Ort der die unmittelbare Erfahrung dieser Kraft ermöglicht. Sie sprechen auch über Schabus’ Ausstellung im Grafischen Kabinett 1996, die er in das darunterliegende Ver-Sacrum-Zimmer erweiterte und – sichtbar nach außen durch das Vernageln der Fenster der beiden Räume an der Fassade – verband, sowie über seine mittlerweile legendäre Ausstellung Astronaut (Komme gleich), bei der er 2003 den Zugang zum Hauptraum zugemauert hat. Seine intensive Beschäftigung mit dem Untergrund als Verkörperung einer verkehrten Utopie führte damals nicht nur dazu, die Repräsentationsidee des vermeintlich ersten White Cubes zu brechen und zum Verschwinden zu bringen. Sie mündete auch in mehreren Kurzfilmen, darunter Western, den er 2002 in der Wiener Kanalisation drehte und Astronaut (2003), im von ihm errichteten Tunnelsystem in der Secession. Das Gespräch wurde am 28. Jänner 2026 in der Secession aufgezeichnet. Hans Schabus wurde 1970 in Watschig / Österreich geboren und lebt in Wien. Von 1991 bis 1996 studierte er Bildhauerei bei Bruno Gironcoli an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. Seit 2012 unterrichtet er an der Universität für angewandte Kunst, wo er die Abteilung für Skulptur und Raum leitet. Hans Schabus zeigt seine Arbeiten seit 1992 im nationalen wie internationalen Kontext. Kathrin Rhomberg ist eine in Wien ansässige Kuratorin. Seit 2014 ist sie Vorstandsvorsitzende und künstlerische Leiterin der Kontakt Sammlung. Zuvor war sie Kuratorin und Leiterin des Ausstellungsbüros der Secession Wien sowie Direktorin des Kölnischen Kunstvereins in Köln. Sie kuratierte unter anderem 2009 den tschechisch-slowakischen Pavillon (Roman Ondak) bei der 53. Biennale von Venedig, die 6. Berlin Biennale 2010, den Pavillon der Republik Kosovo (Petrit Halilaj) bei der 55. Biennale von Venedig 2013 und war 2000 Ko-kuratorin der Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana, von Projekt Migration, Köln (2002–06), Former West—Documents, Constellations, Prospects, HKW, Berlin (2012), Das Bauhaus in Kalkutta im Bauhaus Dessau (2013), der Retrospektive von Július Koller im Museum Moderner Kunst in Warschau (2015) und im Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien (2016) sowie der Retrospektive von Edi Hila im Museum Moderner Kunst in Warschau (2018) und in der Nationalgalerie in Tirana (2018). Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession. Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts. Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard. Schnitt: Paul Macheck Produktion: Jeanette Pacher
#80
March 20 · 54 min
Members: Hans Kupelwieser im Gespräch mit Lisa Ortner-Kreil
In diesem Gespräch mit der Kuratorin und Kunsthistorikerin Lisa Ortner-Kreil spricht Hans Kupelwieser über seine langjährige Verbindung zur Secession, wo seine Arbeiten bereits 1981 in der von Peter Weibel und Anna Auer kuratierten Ausstellung Erweiterte Fotografie [Extended Photography] gezeigt wurden—ein Ereignis, das er als Beginn seiner künstlerischen Laufbahn betrachtet. Seit mehr als vier Jahrzehnten schafft er Werke in einer Vielzahl von Medien, vor allem Skulpturen, aber auch Fotografien sowie großformatige Installationen. Darüber hinaus spricht der Künstler über Methoden der Verfremdung, Prozesse der Verzerrung, die Rolle des Zufalls in der künstlerischen Produktion, die unvorhersehbaren Ergebnisse der Arbeit mit Fotogrammen sowie Farbe als Bedeutungsträger; nicht zuletzt verweist er auf die Bedeutung der Wahrnehmung, die Erweiterung unserer Sehgewohnheiten und den sogenannten „Kupelwieser-Effekt“. Das Gespräch wurde am 16. Jänner 2026 in der Secession aufgezeichnet. Hans Kupelwieser wurde 1948 in Lunz am See geboren, besuchte Anfang der 1970er-Jahre die Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt Wien und studierte von 1976 bis 1982 bei Herbert Tasquil, Bazon Brock und Peter Weibel an der Hochschule (heute Universität) für angewandte Kunst Wien. Von 1995 bis 2014 war er Professor am Institut für Zeitgenössische Kunst an der TU Graz. Er lebt in Wien und in Lunz am See. Er hatte Einzelausstellungen unter anderem bei Giese & Schweiger, Wien (2023), Kunsthalle Krems (2022), Wienerroither & Kohlbacher, Wien (2020), Galerie 422, Gmunden (2019), smolka contemporary, Wien; Galerie rauminhalt, Wien (beide 20218), Art Box, MQ Wien; Haus der Kunst, Brünn (beide 2016), Kunsthalle Nexus, Saalfelden (2015), Zeit.Kunst.Niederösterreich, St. Pölten (2012). Kupelwieser hat einige Projekte im öffentlichen Raum realisiert, darunter Kugelhaufen, Musiktheater Linz (2013), Seebühne, Lunz am See (2004), Denkmal für den jüdischen Friedhof, Krems (1998) und Hohlkopfwand, St. Pölten (1996). Arbeiten des Künstlers sind aktuell in seiner Einzelausstellung in der Stadtgalerie Klagenfurt zu sehen (bis 10. Mai). Lisa Ortner-Kreil ist Kunsthistorikerin und Literaturwissenschaftlerin. Von 2013 bis 2025 war sie als Kuratorin am Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien tätig, wo sie mehrere vielbeachtete Ausstellungen organisierte, darunter Gerhard Richter: Landschaft (2020/21, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Kunsthaus Zürich), Kiki Kogelnik: Now Is the Time (2023/24, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Kunstmuseum Brandts und dem Kunsthaus Zürich) und Anton Corbijn: Favourite Darkness (2025). Seit 2026 ist Lisa Ortner-Kreil Kuratorin bei der Kunstmeile Krems, wo sie für die strategische Entwicklung und Umsetzung von Ausstellungen zeitgenössischer Kunst in mehreren Institutionen verantwortlich ist. Zuvor war sie unter anderem an der Albertina in Wien sowie am Königlichen Museum der Schönen Künste in Brüssel tätig. Lisa Ortner-Kreil hat an der Universität Wien promoviert. Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession. Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts. Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard. Schnitt: Paul Macheck Produktion: Jeanette Pacher
#79
March 6 · 1 hr 5 min
Members: Josef Dabernig im Gespräch mit Fanny Hauser
In dieser Folge spricht der Künstler und Filmemacher Josef Dabernig mit Kuratorin und Kunsthistorikerin Fanny Hauser über seine künstlerischen Anfänge in der Zeichnung und Kleinplastik, das Verhältnis von Film, Skulptur, Fotografie und Text in seinem Werk sowie über seine langjährige Beziehung zur Secession, wo er mehrmals ausgestellt hat, als Vorstandsmitglied tätig war und wo er nach dem Studium im Rahmen eines Akademikertrainings Mitte der 1980er-Jahre die frische, internationale Ausrichtung der Institution unmittelbar miterlebte. Das Gespräch wurde am 12. Dezember 2025 in der Secession aufgenommen. Josef Dabernig, geb. 1956 in Lienz. Studium der Bildhauerei an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. Filme seit 1994, lebt in Wien. Beteiligungen an der der Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana (2000), 49. und 50. Venedig Biennale (2001, 2003), 6. Gyumri Biennale (2008), 9. Gwangju Biennale (2012), 1. Bergen Assembly (2013), 6. Contour Biennale, Mechelen (2013), Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg (2014), steirischer herbst ’20 und ’22 sowie der 15. Baltic Triennial, Vilnius (2024). Festivalteilnahmen u.a. an Locarno International Film Festival, Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Toronto International Film Festival und Internationale Filmfestspiele Venedig. https://dabernig.net/ Fanny Hauser ist Kuratorin und Direktorin der Kunsthalle Zürich. Zuvor war sie als stellvertretende Direktorin am Ludwig Forum für internationale Kunst in Aachen tätig. 2015 gründete sie gemeinsam mit Carolina Nöbauer, Denise Helene Sumi und Franziska Sophie Wildförster den in Wien ansässigen Kunstverein Kevin Space, wo sie zahlreiche Einzelausstellungen und künstlerische Neuproduktionen mitverantwortete. Bevor sie von 2019 bis 2021 gemeinsam mit Viktor Neumann kuratorische Stipendiatin der Gebert Stiftung für Kultur in Rapperswil war, arbeitete sie als kuratorische Assistentin für die documenta 14 in Athen und Kassel. Sie studierte Kunstgeschichte und Komparatistik in Wien und Paris und war bis 2022 Lehrbeauftragte an der Universität für angewandte Kunst in Wien. Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession. Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts. Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard. Schnitt: Paul Macheck Produktion: Jeanette Pacher
#78
February 20 · 33 min
Artists: Cevdet Erek in conversation with Bettina Spörr
Shortly before the opening on 28 November 2026, Cevdet Erek talks with curator Bettina Spörr about his exhibition and sound installation on Secession's façade. Cevdet Erek Secessions-Ornamentik 29.11.2025 – 22.2.2026 Some of Cevdet Erek’s site-specific installations and sonic environments, placed at the intersection of sound, sculpture, and architecture, evolve around the idea of ‘sound ornamentation’. With this term, the artist refers to Adolf Loos’s Ornament and Crime (1908) amongst others. This text celebrates lack of ornamentation as the mark of a ‘cultivated’ society. Loos’ polemic is key to a moralising discourse that once sought to purge architecture of decoration in the name of progress. In that context, ornament – associated with sensuality, femininity, and excess – was condemned as wasteful and irrational. Loos’ text linked ornament to primitivism and degeneration, framing modern Western culture as superior to the supposedly ‘undeveloped’. Such rhetoric not only marginalised the close relationship between ornament and abstraction but also exposed the colonial and patriarchal logics underpinning modernist aesthetics. Erek re-enters this ideological terrain, transforming ornamentation from decorative surface into temporal, vibratory structure – one that organises space and perception. In his installations sound is not background but architecture itself – something built, inhabited, and experienced by bodies in motion. Here, ornamentation becomes a verb: it describes the act of tuning, of aligning oneself with surrounding frequencies. Through attention, the visitor becomes part of the composition. In this way, Erek’s installations dissolve the boundaries between composer and listener, architecture and inhabitant. More Cevdet Erek was born in Istanbul in 1974, where he lives and works. He has developed site-specific installations and presented his work extensively in solo and group exhibitions, among others at Museumsquartier, Vienna; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Art Institute of Chicago; M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; MUAC Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Pavilion of Turkey, 57th Venice Biennale; Spike Island, Bristol; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool; 36th Bienal de São Paulo (both 2025); Manifesta 14, Pristina (2022); Gropius Bau, Berlin; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main; 5th Marrakech Biennale (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012); 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); Tate Modern, London. Since 2008, Bettina Spörr is a curator at the Secession, where she engages in close collaboration with artists to conceptualise and realise exhibitions that explore the profound impact of contemporary art on society. Throughout her career, she has worked with numerous artists on solo exhibitions and, in 2010, curated the group show where do we go from here? at the Secession. Secession Podcast: Artists features artists exhibiting at the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Bettina Spörr
#77
January 30 · 34 min
Artists: Julienne Lorz and Haris Giannouras on Duane Linklater
Departing from Duane Linklater’s exhibition mâcistan at Secession, on view through 15 February 2026, Julienne Lorz, Professor for Expanded Museum Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and curator Haris Giannouras talk about the history and present of, and forms that have shaped institutional critique since the 1960s as well as the ways in which Linklater explores a new way of instituting. Julienne Lorz is Professor for Expanded Museum Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since October 2021, the new Master’s programme Expanded Museum Studies has been dedicated to examining, expanding and reorienting the concept of museum in all its facets. Previously she was Chief Curator at Gropius Bau in Berlin and a curator at Haus der Kunst in Munich, having curated and co-curated several international projects, monographic, and thematic group exhibitions including artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Joan Jonas, Laure Prouvost, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, and Haegue Yang. Haris Giannouras works with artists to make exhibitions, artworks, publications and events. He is currently a curator at the Secession in Vienna. Before that he worked at MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST in Frankfurt am Main and Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. Recent projects include work with Studio for Propositional Cinema, Cana Bilir-Meier, Atelier Bow-Wow, Andrea Büttner, Jamie Crewe, Beatrice Gibson, Onyeka Igwe, Hiwa K, Ghislaine Leung, Duane Linklater, Karī Mugo, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, and the Estate of Suzan Pitt. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr
#76
January 9 · 4 min
Sound: Duane Linklater
Duane Linklater Supplies for the Soul During the opening of Duane Linklater’s exhibition mâcistan on 28 November 2025, the performance Supplies for the Soul was acted out by three performers. Listen and enjoy the recording of this unique event. Duane Linklater’s work and practice is grounded on an inspective inquiry on the foundations of institutions as they relate to the contemporary life and histories of Indigenous Peoples. His installations often employ paintings, sculptures, readymade objects, personal belongings, printed matter, images and symbols that he collects and accumulates. This process, linked to the concept of the cache – an enclosement, a safekeep – builds the core for a new body of work the artist presents in his exhibition at Secession. During the opening a live act unfolded. Performed by a singer, a guitarist and a drum set, the new score, or musical soundtrack, titled Supplies for the Soul echoes sonic memories tethered to the multifarious histories of community and powerful tenderness of reclaiming agency, art and institutions. Performers: Lili Ojeda, Matevž Počič, and Baj Gostič Arrangement by Rahul Nair An event organised by the Secession Friends Duane Linklater (born 1976) is Omaskêko Ininiwak from the Moose Cree First Nation. He lives and works in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. Linklater was featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial: Quiet as It's Kept, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In 2018, Linklater installed pêyakotênaw—a public artwork comprising three large teepee sculptures—along the High Line in New York. He was the 2016 recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for Media Art, and the 2013 Sobey Art Award winner. In 2017, Linklater was awarded a public commission for the Don River Valley Park, Toronto in 2017. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Recording: Martin Laumann Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher, Haris Giannouras
#75
Dec 18, 2025 · 41 min
Artists: Mimi Ọnụọha in conversation with Jeanette Pacher
What can we truly know about ourselves and our histories in an age of hypervisibility, when algorithms and social structures alike decide not only what is seen but what is pushed into invisibility or irrelevance? On the afternoon of 28 November 2025, Mimi Ọnụọha talked about her exhibition Soft Zeros; what she learned about collecting data and organizing it, about the Convict Leasing system and the impact is has had especially on Black lives in the USA, and about collective forgetting and denial over a 2-year research stretch and in the process of creating the new body of work that is presented in the exhibition. Mimi Ọnụọha Soft Zeros 29.11.2025 – 22.2.2026 In Soft Zeros, Mimi Ọnụọha examines the unreliability of archives and the instability of knowledge, exploring how absence and silence – shaped by algorithmic bias, historical denial, and collective forgetting – become meaningful. She points to what has not been collected, asked, allowed, or represented. More Nigerian-American artist Mimi Ọnụọha’s work questions and exposes the contradictory logics of technological progress. Through print, code, data, video, installation, and archival media, Ọnụọha offers new orientations for making sense of the seeming absences that define systems of labor, ecology and relations. Ọnụọha’s work has been featured at the Whitney Museum of Art (NY, USA), the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (AUS), the Mao Jihong Arts Foundation (CN), La Gaitê Lyrique (FR), Gropius Bau (DE), The Photographers Gallery (UK), and Atlanta Contemporary (GA, USA), among others. Her public art engagements have been supported by the Academy of Arts, Berlin (DE), the Royal College of Art (UK), the Rockefeller Foundation (NY, USA), and Princeton University (NJ, USA). Her work is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK). Ọnụọha is a Creative Capital and Fulbright–National Geographic grantee. She is also the co-founder of A People’s Guide to Tech, an artist-led organization that makes educational guides and workshops about emerging technology. Jeanette Pacher is a curator at the Vienna Secession since 2007. She is a regular lecturer in the Department of Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and since 2023, a jury member of KÖR – Art in Public Space Vienna. Secession Podcast: Artists features artists exhibiting at the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Jeanette Pacher
#74
Dec 4, 2025 · 46 min
Members: Ashley Hans Scheirl im Gespräch mit AntkeAntek Engel
Nach einem gemeinsamen Besuch der Ausstellung „In & Out of Painting*“ im Belvedere 21 unterhalten sich Ashley Hans Scheirl und AntkeAntek Engel, Leiter*in des Instituts für Queer Theory in Berlin, unter anderem über Zusammenarbeit, Community, Queering- und Genderfragen, Verletzlichkeit, Bewegung und Wahrnehmung und über Archive. Viel Spaß beim Hören der neuen Folge. Diese Folge wurde am 17. November 2025 in der Secession aufgenommen. Ashley Hans Scheirl *1956 in Salzburg, lebt in Wien. Studium an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (Diplom 1980). Zwischen 1979 und 1998 entstanden über 50 Super8 Kurzfilme und zwei Langfilme. 1981–82 Aufenthalt in New York, von 1987 bis 2005 lebte Scheirl in London. 2003 M.A. Abschluss am Central St Martins College of Art & Design, London. 2006–2022 Professur für Kontextuelle Malerei an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien, seit 2022 ebendort Senior Professor*in. 2006 Österreichisches Staatsstipendium für Bildende Kunst, 2012 Kunstpreis der Stadt Wien, 2019 Österreichischer Preis für Bildende Kunst des Bundeskanzleramts. 2022 repräsentierte Scheirl mit Jakob Lena Knebl Österreich bei der Venedig Biennale. 2025 Klocker Kunstpreis (zusammen mit Jakob Lena Knebl). Jüngste Einzelausstellungen: 2023 Palais de Tokyo, Paris; 2024 Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; 2025 Belvedere 21, Wien (alle mit Jakob Lena Knebl). www.ashleyhansscheirl.com/ AntkeAntek Engel (xi/xens; they/them) leitet das Institut für Queer Theory (iQt) in Berlin, das seit 2006 Projekte initiiert, in denen sich akademische und aktivistische, philosophische, politische und künstlerische Praxen verflechten. Engel hat 2001 an der Universität Potsdam in Philosophie promoviert und ist seitdem auf Gastprofessuren für Gender und Queer Studies sowie freiberuflich in Wissenschaft und Kulturproduktion tätig. Xi hat zahlreichen Bücher und Aufsätze zu queeren und feministischen Themen, zu politischer Philosophie, poststrukturalistischer Repräsentationskritik und queering visuelle Kultur veröffentlicht. Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession. Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts. Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard. Schnitt: Paul Macheck Produktion: Jeanette Pacher
#73
Nov 20, 2025 · 1 hr 2 min
Members: Otto Kapfinger im Gespräch mit Claudia Cavallar
Hören Sie in dieser Folge den Architekten, Ausstellungskurator, Architekturhistoriker, kritischen Beobachter und Kommentator seiner gebauten Umgebung Otto Kapfinger im Gespräch mit der Architektin Claudia Cavallar. Kapfinger ist seit Mitte der 1970er-Jahre Secessions-Mitglied und hat Mitte der 1980er-Jahre mit Adolf Krischanitz und Oskar Putz die umfassende Sanierung des Hauses verantwortet. In diesem lebendigen Gespräch teilt Kapfinger sein geradezu lexikalisches Wissen über Architektur, Stadtplanung, bildende Kunst, Fotografie und Kulturpolitik, nicht nur im historischen Wien um die Jahrhundertwende, sondern auch aus der Perspektive eines aktiven Gestalters. Diese Folge wurde am 17. Oktober 2025 in der Secession aufgenommen. Otto Kapfinger (*1949) lebt als freier Architekturwissenschaftler in Wien. Er ist Autor von etwa 50 Büchern zur Baukunst in Österreich und Kurator zahlreicher Ausstellungen. 1970 gründete er mit Angela Hareiter und Adolf Krischanitz die Experimental-Architekt*innengruppe Missing Link, die bis zu ihrer Auflösung 1980 künstlerische Aktionen, Performances und Experimentalfilme realisierte. 1985/86 unternahm er im Rahmen der Sanierung der Secession von Adolf Krischanitz umfassende architekturhistorische Recherchen für die Renovierung des Olbrich-Baus. Von 1978 bis 1992 war Kapfinger im Vorstand der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Architektur und von 1980 bis 84 im Vorstand der Secession Wien. 1981 bis 1991 schrieb er regelmäßig Rezensionen und Essays für die Tageszeitung Die Presse. 2019 wurde ihm der Ehrendoktor der Technischen Universität Wien verliehen. Zuletzt leitete er das Forschungsprojekt Anatomie einer Metropole. Bauen mit Eisenbeton in Wien 1890–1918 (Ausstellung im Wien Museum 2025). Claudia Cavallar studierte Architektur bei Hans Hollein und Greg Lynn. Nach Mitarbeit in verschiedenen Architekturbüros, unter anderem bei the next ENTERprise, ist sie seit 2010 selbstständig. In ihrer Arbeit setzt sie sich mit dem Unauffälligen, Zufälligen und Gewohnten in der Architektur auseinander, mit dem Verhältnis zwischen Tradition und Erfindung, Ortsspezifischem und Allgemeinem und dem Einfluss, den Produktionsmethoden der Architektur auf das Ergebnis haben. Seit 2008 beschäftigt sie sich mit der Arbeit von Josef Frank, insbesondere seiner Innenräume, Stoffmuster und Möbel. Sie ist außerdem für Gestaltung und Display sowie als Kuratorin von Ausstellungen tätig. 2025 wurde Claudia Cavallar mit dem Hans Hollein Kunstpreis für Architektur ausgezeichnet. www.claudiacavallar.at Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession. Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts. Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard. Schnitt: Paul Macheck Produktion: Jeanette Pacher
#72
Nov 6, 2025 · 51 min
Artists: June Crespo in conversation with Bettina Spörr
June Crespo’s sculptural assemblages, which the artist understands as communicating vessels, resonate within our bodies. At times delicate, at others forceful, they always emanate a vital, living quality. Listen to the artist talk about her inspirations and working process. This episode was recorded on 12 September 2025, the day after the opening of the exhibition: June Crespo Danzante 12.9. – 16.11.2025 Most of the works in the exhibition Danzante take their formal vocabulary from the iris and the strelitzia (bird of paradise). Yet the artist is not concerned with representing these plants. Instead of proposing a classificatory symbolic order, they serve as starting points for a deeper engagement with materiality and the evocative potential of surfaces and textures, which take precedence over the pictorial dimension. Crespo treats her materials as agents, understanding herself an assistant to her work rather than an authority figure. In this way, she offers us a visceral experience – an encounter with objects that touch us in our corporeality and heighten our awareness of our own presence and its fragmented condition. More June Crespo (Pamplona1982) lives and works in Bilbao. Obtained her BFA from the Basque Country university (Bilbao) in 2005 and completed a two years residency at De Ateliers (Amsterdam) in 2017. Her solo shows include: Solar (2025), at Ehrhardt Flórez gallery, Madrid. Their weft, the grass (2024) at 1646.nl, The Hague; Vascular (2024) at Guggenheim Bilbao Museum; they saw their house turn into fields (2023) at CA2M, Madrid; Acts of Pulse (2022) at P420, Bologna; entre alguien y algo (2022) at CarrerasMugica, Bilbao; Am I an Object (2021) PA///KT (Amsterdam); Helmets (2020) Artium, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Recently her work has also been shown in group such as: L´écorce (2023) at CRAC-Alsace; The Milk of Dreams (2022) at Venice Biennale; Fata Morgana (2022) Jeu de Paume (Paris) and The point of Sculpture (2021) at Fundación Miró (Barcelona). Since 2008, Bettina Spörr is a curator at the Secession, where she engages in close collaboration with artists to conceptualise and realise exhibitions that explore the profound impact of contemporary art on society. Throughout her career, she has worked with numerous artists on solo exhibitions and, in 2010, curated the group show where do we go from here? at the Secession. Secession Podcast: Artists features artists exhibiting at the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Bettina Spörr
#71
Oct 24, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min
Artists: John Smith in conversation with Jeanette Pacher
Listen to John Smith talk about his most ordinary name and how that possibly has more impact on his work than you’d think; how this inspired him to make the (autofictional) film Being John Smith (2024), one of three films in his Secession show; about the power of language, used both as voice-over and caption, over imagery; and about bad puns. This episode was recorded on 11 September 2025, shortly before the opening of John’s exhibition: John Smith Being John Smith 12.9. – 16.11.2025 In the mid-1970s, John Smith shared the widespread interest in challenging the illusionism of mainstream cinema and subverting apparent divisions between abstraction and representation, between the personal and the political. He did so alongside colleagues from the Royal College of Art, where he trained, and members of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative. From the beginning, he was also fascinated by the capacity of sound – especially of the spoken word – to shape perception or conjure images. Smith handles image, sound, and text flexibly: instead of synchronizing them, he works with interruptions and disruptions – and a lot of black screen in between. He explains: ‘I’m not afraid of having darkness in films because that’s where the imagination works. I really love sound and darkness.’ More Since 1972, John Smith has made over sixty film, video and installation works that have been shown in museums, art galleries and independent cinemas around the world and awarded major prizes at many international film festivals. Retrospectives of his films have been presented at film festivals in sixteen countries. He received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2011, and in 2013 he was the winner of the UK’s Jarman Award. www.johnsmithfilms.com Jeanette Pacher is a curator at the Vienna Secession since 2007. She is a regular lecturer in the Department of Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and since 2023, a jury member of KÖR – Art in Public Space Vienna. Secession Podcast: Artists features artists exhibiting at the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producer: Jeanette Pacher
#70
Oct 9, 2025 · 40 min
Artists: Momoyo Kaijima from Atelier Bow-Wow in conversation with Haris Giannouras
This episode is a conversation between architect and Atelier Bow-Wow-founding-member Momoyo Kiajima and curator Haris Giannouras. It was recorded right after the opening of the exhibition Suturing Together by Atelier Bow-Wow on 12 September 2025. Their discussion focuses on care work in architecture, books and their forms in designing and understanding the build environment, 1980s Japanese comedy shows, Sutemi Horiguchi, and the importance of love in building someone’s home. Atelier Bow-Wow Suturing Together 12.9. – 16.11.2025 The exhibition Suturing Together includes a site-specific intervention covering almost the entire right arch of the Secession’s foyer, an extended archive showing the studio’s practice spanning over the last 30 years, a thatch-seating made using thatch in collaboration with students from Vienna and a poster with detailed essays and an analytical index of Atelier Bow-Wow’s past projects. Exploring material networks, supply chains and ad hoc architecture, the term “Suturing” becomes a stand-in for the studio's synergetic approach: piecing together things that have been torn up, forms, communities, histories and memories. This episode was recorded on 12 September 2025 at the Secession. Atelier Bow-Wow, based in Tokyo, was founded in 1992 by Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto. Yoichi Tamai was appointed partner in 2015. Atelier Bow-Wow is an acclaimed international practice with an extensive portfolio of work as well as exhibitions and publications. The firm’s projects range from residential buildings to public spaces and are characterized by a commitment to sustainability, social impact, and an understanding of human behavior in the built environment. Tsukamoto and Kaijima received the RIBA International Fellowship in 2012 and the Wolf Prize in Architecture in 2022. Atelier Bow-Wow is the 2024– 2026 Rothwell Co-Chair at the University of Sydney. Momoyo Kaijima has been serving as professor of architectural behaviorology at ETH, Zurich, since 2017 and vice president of the NPO Cheer Art, where she became president in 2024. She also taught as a visiting professor at the Department of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2003 and 2016, as well as at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011–2012, at Rice University in 2014–2015, at Columbia University in 2017, and at the Yale School of Architecture in 2023. In 2018, she was the curator of Japanese pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. In 2024, she was appointed to the planning and management committee of TOTO Gallery·Ma and made a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Haris Giannouras works with artists to make exhibitions, artworks, publications and events. He is currently a curator at the Secession in Vienna. Before that he worked at MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST in Frankfurt and Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. Recent projects include work with Studio for Propositional Cinema, Cana Bilir-Meier, Atelier Bow-Wow, Andrea Büttner, Jamie Crewe, Beatrice Gibson, Onyeka Igwe, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Hiwa K, Ghislaine Leung, Lin & Lam, Duane Linklater, Karī Mugo, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, and the Estate of Suzan Pitt. Secession Podcast: Members is a series of conversations featuring members of the Secession. The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast. Programmed by the board of the Secession. Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard Audio Editor: Paul Macheck Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr

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