The Vienna Secession was founded in 1897. A group of Austrian artists rebelled against the conservative Künstlerhaus at the time. Their motto still rings just as sharp today, “Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit,” meaning to the age its art, to art its freedom. Gustav Klimt became the first president. Kolo Moser and architect Joseph Maria Olbrich stood by his side. Otto Wagner was also close to the group, though he wasn’t formally a founding member.
The Building Vienna Didn’t Want at First
Olbrich was only 30 years old when he was tasked with designing the exhibition building. The city initially rejected the plot on the Ringstraße. Permission came only for a “temporary pavilion for a maximum of ten years.” It was built in six months in 1898, partly funded by industrialist Karl Wittgenstein. Contemporary critics called it a “temple for bullfrogs” or a “crematorium.” The dome was mockingly nicknamed a “cabbage head.” Today it’s an icon of Secessionist architecture. The golden dome consists of 3,000 gilded laurel leaves and 311 berries, with three Gorgon masks guarding the entrance. In the final weeks of World War II, the building was damaged by bombs. It was also set on fire by the retreating German army. It was last renovated in 2017-18.
The Frieze That Was Meant to Disappear
Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze from 1902 hangs in the building’s basement. It was originally meant to be torn down right after the exhibition, which drew nearly 60,000 visitors at the time. Collector Reinighaus later had it cut into eight pieces. It sat in a furniture depot for twelve years, until industrialist August Lederer bought it in 1915. It didn’t get its own room until 1985, following a decade-long restoration. The press at the time condemned it as “painted pornography.” The wall depicting the “hostile forces,” allegories of sickness, madness, and death, sparked the most outrage. Since 2020, visitors have been able to scan a QR code to listen to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony live alongside the frieze.
Three Exhibitions, One House
Exactly 129 years after the rebellion, the current programme looks just as bold. Until August 30, 2026, the building hosts three separate exhibitions at once, across three floors.
Katherine Hubbard: The Great Room
Katherine Hubbard presents her project The Great Room, represented by New York’s Company Gallery. She spent five years photographing her mother, Antonette Berger, through her struggle with LATE dementia. She treats the camera as part of caregiving, not as a tool of distance. Sometimes her mother presses the shutter herself. A series of cameraless works also captures imprints of their bodies, coated in Vaseline directly on photographic paper. The exhibition continues in October at Studio Voltaire in London.
Onyeka Igwe: Colonial Archives of Nigeria
Onyeka Igwe, in her exhibition No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame, returns to the abandoned building of the former Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos, represented by London’s Arcadia Missa. The work premiered at the Nigerian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale. Its sound component draws on the Egba Women’s Revolt, a 1947 uprising against colonial taxation led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.
Mire Lee: A Machine Like a Body
Mire Lee, meanwhile, turns the space into something like a weary organism in her work The Heart of My Machine is Golden Lead. A massive cement mixer hides behind a wall, oozing viscous matter. A parallel presentation of her work is also running at the Korean Cultural Center in Vienna. Fragments of the piece will later move on to the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.
Exactly 129 years after the rebellion, the Secession remains exactly what it was meant to be from the start, a place where art doesn’t have to compromise.
