Abaseh Mirvali
Artistic Director, viennacontemporary
Video
The inspiring conversation between Abaseh Mirvali, director of Vienna Contemporary, and Sandro Droschl ranged from Diego Bianchi’s current exhibition “Errores Irreales” at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark to Mirvali’s comprehensive expertise on Diego Bianchi, which is based on many years of close and intensive collaboration with the artist. In addition, the work of Celina Eceiza was discussed and placed in the broader context of Argentine art history. Another focus was on Mirvali’s remarkable professional career — from her beginnings in San Francisco to the Colleción/Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, the Biennial of the Americas, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, to her current position at viennacontemporary, where she was responsible for the program of the 2025 fair. This year’s edition brought together 97 galleries and five institutions from 23 countries. Thanks to Mirvali’s commitment, her professional expertise, and her consistent focus on innovative approaches to mediation, viennacontemporary presented itself as particularly dynamic and forward-looking this year.
Diego Bianchi: Errores Irreales
Celina Eceiza: Ofrenda
Artists
Participating artists
Abaseh Mirvali
is a curator and cultural project producer with a career-long commitment to civic engagement and public service through innovative collaborations between contemporary art initiatives and the community at large. Mirvali is currently the Artistic Director at viennacontemporary. For the 2025 viennacontemporary edition, she created a bold program for the fair, which included the participation of 97 galleries and 5 institutions from 23 countries. Between 2018 and 2020, Mirvali served as executive director and chief curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB), in California, presenting artists like artist Lara Favaretto and Ari Benjamin Meyers. Mirvali is the author of the concept and program development of the 2013 edition of The Biennial of the Americas, where she served executive director and comisaria from 2011 to 2013. Between 2005 and 2009, Mirvali was the executive director of the Colección/Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City.
Sandro Droschl
is founding director and curator of the institution HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark. From 2012 to 2020 he directed the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien. Since 2000 he worked as curator, then also as director for the Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz, besides as guest curator at other institutions. He curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and edited over 30 publications. Droschl made a study iregulare, “Body. Media. Art,” with art (Isabelle Graw, Free Class), philosophy, journalism and medicine at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, University of Vienna and London Guildhall University.
More contributions
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Exhibition Tour
Slide show
The exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. (A.I.O.) explores questions of thought, perception, and subjectivity at the intersection of introspection, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence. Its point of departure is the work of the Austrian writer, cognitive psychologist, and cybernetician Oswald Wiener (1935 – 2021), whose genuine thinking since the 1950s critically navigated between these fields while systematically resisting institutional appropriation.
Slide Show A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. Dr. Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer
Susanne Wenger’s painting between Africa and Europe
Video
In her lecture, art historian and curator Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer examines Susanne Wenger’s work as a transcultural Gesamtkunstwerk that bridges European modernism and Yorùbá ritual practice, creating a new sacred aesthetic that merges art, ritual, and cultural boundaries.
Brigitte Borchardt Kathy Rae Huffman
FROM CYBERFEMINISM
UNTIL NOW
Video
Kathy Rae Huffman’s lecture traces the evolution of cyberfeminism since the 1990s: it connected women in the digital sphere, challenged existing power structures, and presented examples — from VNS Matrix to contemporary digital activism — that highlight critiques of platform corporations, AI cultures, and global inequalities.
Kathy Rae Huffman Xol Meissner
Concert
Video
New York-based artist Xol Meissner — the alter ego of composer Mauro Hertig — has transformed the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a hypnotic soundscape of extraordinary intensity with his haunting music, which oscillates between contemporary classical and avant-garde rock.
Xol Meissner Karin M. Schmidlechner
Styrian women during and after National Socialism
Video
In her research and in the volume Aus dem Blickfeld (Out of Sight), co-edited with Heimo Halbrainer, Karin Maria Schmidlechner demonstrates that the lived realities of Styrian women during the Nazi era and the postwar period were diverse and ambivalent. Hence, she broadens the scholarly discourse on their daily lives while simultaneously deconstructing common narratives such as that of the conformist woman or the so-called “rubble woman.”
Karin M. Schmidlechner Eva Ursprung
The Art of Surfacing
Slide show
With the exhibition The Art of Surfacing, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark presents the multifaceted work of Austrian artist, musician, and curator Eva Ursprung, who was awarded the Honorary Prize of the Province of Styria in 2024. Her cross-media, feminist, and socially critical approaches revolve around the element of water as a metaphor for change and political and ecological processes.
Slide show Eva Ursprung Susanne Wenger
Àdùnní Olórìṣà
Slide show
Susanne Wenger gilt als eine zentrale Künstlerin Österreichs nach 1945 und als frühe Wegbereiterin des Surrealismus. Ihr Œuvre, das Skulpturen, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Drucke und Batiken umfasst, überschreitet ästhetische Kategorien und verbindet Kunst, Spiritualität und Mythos.
Slide Show Susanne Wenger Tobias Boos
Chainsaws, crypto, corruption.
Argentina between populism and the radical right
Video
Tobias Boos is political scientist at the University of Vienna who specializes in Latin America, populism, and economic developments, such as Argentina’s crisis since the 2000s and current right-wing populist movements like that led by Javier Milei.
Tobias Boos