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Franz West and Vienna
How his home city shaped Franz West, focused on his formative years from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Opens alongside a parallel West show at the Albertina Modern.
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Preview: written before the show opened
In Zitat (1985), Franz West's youth bed from the Karl-Marx-Hof is wrapped in tin foil. Most people's childhood bed ends up in a cellar; West's ended up in a museum.
The show looks at how his home city shaped him. The museum says Vienna inspired and irritated the artist in equal measure, and the exhibition follows that through postwar architectural colours, Viennese Modernism and allusions to Freud and Wittgenstein. It concentrates on his formative years, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, and includes early collages made with his half-brother's children's wallpaper.
It opens on 6 November, the same day as the Albertina Modern retrospective The Revolution of Sculpture, which runs to 29 March 2027. The museum lists admission at €9 (€7 reduced), free for under-19s and on the first Sunday of each month. On Thursdays it stays open until 21:00, and curatorial tours run at 18:30.
Editor's pick
Zitat, the bed from West's youth in the Karl-Marx-Hof wrapped in tin foil, sets the tone: the artist through his home city, late 1960s to early 1980s. Pair it with the Albertina Modern retrospective across Karlsplatz.
Look for
Zitat (1985)
West's own youth bed from the Karl-Marx-Hof, wrapped in tin foil.
The wallpaper collages
Early collages made with children's wallpaper that belonged to his half-brother's children.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
With kids
Under-19s are free, as is everyone on the first Sunday of each month.
Free in the same building
- Gustav Klimt: Portrait of Emilie Flöge (1902)Klimt's full-length 1902 portrait of his companion Emilie Flöge, the fashion designer, is one of the museum's most famous paintings and a highlight of the free permanent exhibition.
- Model of St. Stephen's CathedralA five-metre 19th-century model of St. Stephen's Cathedral, once stored in the cathedral's attic and restored for the museum's central hall.
- Wien. Meine GeschichteThe free permanent exhibition: Vienna's history from the first settlements to today, told chronologically across three floors, 3,300 m² and 1,700 objects.
Also at Wien Museum
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- Franz West and ViennaWien Museum
- Vasarely & Adrian: Dynamic GridsALBERTINA, Vienna – The ESSL Collection © Bildrecht, Vienna 2025
- Bernhard Leitner: SOUNDSPACESCULPTUREFoto: Iris Ranzinger
- Lap-See Lam: 192 Wing Lok StreetFoto: Oliver Ottenschläger. Courtesy der Künstlerin und Galerie Nordenhake Stockholm/Berlin/Mexico City
- Wien MuseumGeolina163 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Albertina ModernC.Stadler/Bwag, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Haus der MusikClemens Pfeiffer, Wikimedia Commons
- Vienna Secession (Secession)Thomas Ledl / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Lower BelvedereC.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0