Image: Mumok, Vienna
Peter Nömaier has become managing director of mumok.
The museum’s current exhibition programme includes ‘Terminal Piece’, running from 20 June 2026 to 7 February 2027, and Tolia Astakhishvili’s ‘Figure of the Child’, on view from 20 June to 1 November 2026.
‘Terminal Piece’ is structured in five acts and centres on Kate Millett’s eponymous installation of 1972. Millett is described as an artist, activist and author, and the work is identified as the first acquisition for the collection under mumok’s new leadership. The exhibition connects works from the mumok collection with new works and external loans.
Its prologue occupies the entrance level, Ebene 0, where stage designer Anna Viebrock has developed a collection presentation. The presentation is described as a walk-in Gesamtkunstwerk: a stage that changes with each movement. It includes works by, among others, Lutz Bacher, Joseph Beuys, Bruno Gironcoli, Hans Haacke, Sol LeWitt, Friederike Mayröcker, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Max Octavian Trauttmansdorff, Rosemarie Trockel and Franz West.
Short guided visits to Viebrock’s Ebene 0 presentation are scheduled for 5 and 6 September at 11am and 4pm; 12 September at 11am in English; 13 September at 11am and 4pm; and 27 September at 11am and 4pm, with the latter tour in English. The tours last 15 to 20 minutes, are free, and do not require registration. Ebene 0 is accessible free of charge through 30 September 2026.
On 12 September at 5pm, Viebrock will join Jan Philipp Gloger, artistic director of Vienna’s Volkstheater, for ‘Eine Bühne im Museum – Anna Viebrock im Gespräch’ on Ebene 0. Viebrock and Gloger will explore how spaces and presentations shape narratives, create atmospheres and can reflect social realities, as well as the connections and differences between theatre and museum and scenography as an artistic practice. Admission is free with online ticket registration.
Astakhishvili’s ‘Figure of the Child’ is the artist’s first museum solo exhibition. It takes a recurring motif in her work as its starting point: the figure of the child, understood as a being with considerable intellectual and creative autonomy while also being strongly dependent on other people. In the exhibition, Astakhishvili focuses on the experience of art through movement and touch, consciously departing from conventions of museum presentation.
German-language tours of ‘Figure of the Child’ are scheduled for 5 and 19 September at 2pm, with an English-language tour on 27 September at 2pm. The one-hour tours are free with a valid exhibition ticket or annual pass, require advance registration, and begin in the mumok foyer.
A participatory station in ‘Figure of the Child’ will operate on 6, 13, 20 and 27 September from 10am to 6pm. Children, young people and adults are invited to explore the exhibition with liquid paint, large-format paper, fabrics, stamps, figures and building blocks. Contributions will gradually create a collective Gesamtkunstwerk that changes and expands during the exhibition’s run.
