On September 15th the 10th edition of Austria’s leading art fair, viennacontemporary, closed. Each year the fair, held at the expansive Messe Wien Halle D, offers a platform for both established and emerging artists from across the globe. The anniversary edition, the first to take place under the artistic direction of Francesca Gavin, attracted 17,000 visitors over the four days. Gavin has also managed to set an uncompromisingly international tone to the art fair, with a special focus on emerging Eastern European art voices. The 2024 edition featured over 360 artists, and a total of 98 galleries, including a selection of 18 new galleries.
In addition to the main exhibition, the fair offers thoughtfully curated sections such as ZONE1, which highlights solo presentations by artists under 40 with connections to Austria, and CONTEXT, which focuses on artists from the late 20th century, providing a historical dimension to the fair’s contemporary explorations. Talks, guided tours, and interactive performances further enrich the experience, reflecting on themes like sustainability, energy, and the future of curation in a post-pandemic and post-war world.
The fair’s commitment to spotlighting diverse voices and practices is reflected in its programming, from guided curator tours to the “VCT Statement” discussions, which explore timely topics like the future of energy supply and climate resilience in the Central and Eastern European regions. Viennacontemporary serves as both a marketplace and a meeting point, offering visitors an immersive experience into the evolving landscape of contemporary art.
Our editors visited this year’s fair, and here are the standout artists that caught their attention, offering fresh perspectives on contemporary art:
Anita Schmid
Anita Schmid, born in 1983, is an Austrian female artist who has studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts as well as the University of Vienna. In this year’s edition of viennacontemporary her works have been presented in an intergenerational dialogue with the works of Romanian artist Molnár Zoltán. Schmid’s soft and abstract pastel paintings bridge the spiritual and physical realms as she guides the viewer into her inner landscape. Her works are rooted in meditative concentration and she draws inspiration from nature and the feminine. The enthralling blends of warm and cool colours in her art feel almost sensual, as she reconnects with her artistic lineage of influential female artists and Indigenous cultures.
We met Anita at the Jecza Gallery booth.
Linda Lach
Linda Lach, born in 1995, is a Polish interdisciplinary artist and astrophysicist based in Warsaw. She studied graphics at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and particle physics at the University of Warsaw. She won the Grand Prix for Best Diploma at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and the Strabag International Art Award. In her art, Lach synthesises visual language into charts and graphs based on algorithms, and her works are all connected by a common motif of the machine and the organism. She says: “In my semi-transparent works that utilize aluminum combined with resin and glass, I feature motifs such as stars, clouds, and drops—elements that challenge the traditional anthropocentric view of technology and advocate for a more balanced perspective while acknowledging techno-scientific systems’ inherent properties and limitations.”
We met the artist Linda Lach next to her work at the common booth in the section STATEMENT. Her work “Endless Memory Dilation, 2024 was included in the group exhibition titled “Color of Energy” curated by Mirela Baciak, created in in collaboration with Salzburger Kunstverein
Linda Lach is represented by Wanda Gallery from Warsaw.
Laura Põld
Laura Põld, born in 1984, is an Estonian interdisciplinary artist, currently based in Tallinn and Vienna. She has studied ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA), painting at the University of Tartu (MA), and sculptural conceptions and ceramics at the University of Art and Design, Linz (MA). She is also a Visiting Associate Professor of installation and sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn.
In her artistic practice, Põld examines post-human and extra-human ways of being through the combined lenses of traditional craft skills and sculpture-based mediums. She creates large-scale installations, subverting the traditional expectations of art venues.
Laura Põld is represented by Kogo Gallery.
Paweł Matyszewski
Paweł Matyszewski, born in 1984, is a Polish painter. He received his MA degree from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań and his doctoral degree from the Faculty of Multimedia Communication at the University of Arts in Poznań. His works are all themed around the impermanence of human life and natural phenomena. In addition to painting, he sometimes uses bologna chalk, live flowers, or soil, thus creating ephemeral installations that succumb to entropy and are documented via photographs. Biological Composition, presented at vienncontemporary, is a collection of botanical specimens. In the series, elements taken directly from nature meet those from the artist’s imagination. The composition is built up by a balanced whirl of organic forms: botanical and bodily, evoking associations with human tissue and skin and with stylized human organs.
Matyszewski is represented by Warsaw-based Le Guern Gallery.
Minda Andrén
Minda Andrén, born in 1990, is a Swedish artist based in Vienna. She graduated from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in painting, where she studied under Daniel Richter. In her practice she draws on philosophy, cognitive science, and literature, questioning how identity evolves in response to media and external forces. Her work is centered around the motif of overwhelming images in today’s world and their relation to the human body and identity, commenting on their effect on one’s sense of self. She collects motifs and glimpses from her daily surroundings, physical and digital, and resignifies them into delicate compositions, asking “What happens when images, meanings, and interpretations overlap?”.
We saw Minda Andrén’s work at the Zeller van Almsick Gallery booth.
Nanna Kaiser
Nanna Kaiser, born in 1991, is a Vienna-based interdisciplinary artist who explores the intersections of painting and sculpture, often collapsing the boundaries between object, surface, and perception. Drawing from the techniques of artists like Heidi Bucher and Eva Hesse, Kaiser’s work engages with latex, imbuing her pieces with a corporeal, skin-like quality. She uses this material as a metaphor to peel away layers of architectural and societal structures, revealing the psychological impact of capitalism and melancholia on these withered, fragmented surfaces. In her practice, the domestic is made uncanny, as cracks and tears become emblematic of deeper emotional and cultural fissures. Kaiser has exhibited widely across Europe, participating in both solo and group shows at prominent venues including Shore Gallery (Vienna), Frac Ile-de-France (Romainville), and Belvedere21 (Vienna). In addition to her artistic practice, Kaiser has curated exhibitions, including Golden Hour Handshake at Kunstraum Konrad, and is actively involved in the arts community as a student assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
Kaiser is represented by Shore Gallery.
Anna Hulačová
Anna Hulačová is a Czech artist, born in 1984. She graduated from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in sculpture and intermedia work. In her work, she uses a wide range of traditional sculptural techniques. By combining brutalist features such as concrete with organic forms she points to the hybrid nature of modernity, where distant forms merge and mutate, forming a new reality. Her work has a distinct apocalyptic feel, heightened by her use of different textures and materials. At viennacontemporary she presented her most recent work, Begonia and Alien Bees, in which she expands on the topic of beekeeping, invoking its’ dystopian and utopian sentiments. Her sculptures are freely inspired by 1990’s Western mysticism, UFOs, and crop circle iconology, as well as Czech mythology and brutalism.
Anna Hulačová is represented by Pedro Cera Gallery.
Milan Vagač
Milan Vagač is a Slovak artist who engages in a diverse range of media, including painting, object creation, and installation art. His work is rooted in modernist ideals, especially within the realm of geometric abstraction, which he extends into contemporary contexts. Vagač often blurs the boundaries between traditional painting and spatial installations, transforming abstract art into blueprints for physical structures. His approach conceptualises the process of painting, revealing its hidden layers and structures, often expanding these forms into three-dimensional spaces.
We saw his work at the stand of the NYC-based gallery Ashes/Ashes.
Andrei Hancu
Andrei Hancu is a Moldovan artist, born in 1988. He has graduated with a degree in graphics from the State University “Ion Creangă” in Chișinău and a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Peter Kogler. In his art, Hancu attempts to bring digital images, such as stock images, cartoon stills, and clipart, into the physical world. In his artistic practice he manages to cultivate a very eccentric and distinctive identity, which he does by meticulously choosing imagery from a seemingly infinite pool of available online resources. At viennacontemporary 2024 his work was presented next to that of Diet Sayler. Both artists use completely different approaches to creating minimalist art, which provides an interesting intergenerational dialogue to the viewer.
Andrei Hancu is represented by 418 Gallery.
Vladimir Miladinović
Vladimir Miladinović was born in 1981 in Belgrade. His work centres around the motifs of politics of remembering, media manipulation, and the creation and reinterpretation of history. He uses his art to create a conversation space for the counter-public to raise questions about historical responsibility, media propaganda, and war. He tries to engage with post-war trauma, forensics, as well as political and ethical identification and presentation of war crimes.
Vladimir Miladinović is represented by Gallery Eugster || Belgrade.
Łukasz Stokłosa
Łukasz Stokłosa, born in 1986, is a Polish visual artist and painter. In 2010 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. His paintings are often inspired by mass culture, and he describes himself as comfortable in the aesthetics of kitsch and camp, with his interests revolving around contemporary interpretations of past events. He constructs his narratives by juxtaposing different distant and foreign elements, which is especially noticeable in his sculptures.
Łukasz Stokłosa is represented by the Krupa Gallery.
Researched by Sylwia Krasoń
