Secession Podcast

Shortly before the opening on 28 November 2026, Cevdet Erek talks with curator Bettina Spörr about his exhibition and sound installation on Secession's façade.

Cevdet Erek
Secessions-Ornamentik 
29.11.2025 – 22.2.2026

Some of Cevdet Erek’s site-specific installations and sonic environments, placed at the intersection of sound, sculpture, and architecture, evolve around the idea of ‘sound ornamentation’. With this term, the artist refers to Adolf Loos’s Ornament and Crime (1908) amongst others. This text celebrates lack of ornamentation as the mark of a ‘cultivated’ society. Loos’ polemic is key to a moralising discourse that once sought to purge architecture of...

Departing from Duane Linklater’s exhibition mâcistan at Secession, on view through 15 February 2026, Julienne Lorz, Professor for Expanded Museum Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and curator Haris Giannouras talk about the history and present of, and forms that have shaped institutional critique since the 1960s as well as the ways in which Linklater explores a new way of instituting.

Julienne Lorz is Professor for Expanded Museum Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since October 2021, the new Master’s programme Expanded Museum Studies has been dedicated to examining, expanding and reorienting the conce...

Duane Linklater Supplies for the Soul

During the opening of Duane Linklater’s exhibition mâcistan on 28 November 2025, the performance Supplies for the Soul was acted out by three performers. Listen and enjoy the recording of this unique event.

Duane Linklater’s work and practice is grounded on an inspective inquiry on the foundations of institutions as they relate to the contemporary life and histories of Indigenous Peoples. His installations often employ paintings, sculptures, readymade objects, personal belongings, printed matter, images and symbols that he collects and accumulates. This process, linked to the concept of the c...

What can we truly know about ourselves and our histories in an age of hypervisibility, when algorithms and social structures alike decide not only what is seen but what is pushed into invisibility or irrelevance?

On the afternoon of 28 November 2025, Mimi Ọnụọha talked about her exhibition Soft Zeros; what she learned about collecting data and organizing it, about the Convict Leasing system and the impact is has had especially on Black lives in the USA, and about collective forgetting and denial over a 2-year research stretch and in the process of creating the new body of work t...

Nach einem gemeinsamen Besuch der Ausstellung „In & Out of Painting*“ im Belvedere 21 unterhalten sich Ashley Hans Scheirl und AntkeAntek Engel, Leiter*in des Instituts für Queer Theory in Berlin, unter anderem über Zusammenarbeit, Community, Queering- und Genderfragen, Verletzlichkeit, Bewegung und Wahrnehmung und über Archive. Viel Spaß beim Hören der neuen Folge.

Diese Folge wurde am 17. November 2025 in der Secession aufgenommen.

Ashley Hans Scheirl *1956 in Salzburg, lebt in Wien. Studium an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien (Diplom 1980). Zwischen 1979 und 1998 entstanden über 50 Super8 Kurzfilme und zwei Langfilme. 1981–82 Aufenthalt in New York, von 1987 bis 2005 lebte Scheirl...

Hören Sie in dieser Folge den Architekten, Ausstellungskurator, Architekturhistoriker, kritischen Beobachter und Kommentator seiner gebauten Umgebung Otto Kapfinger im Gespräch mit der Architektin Claudia Cavallar. Kapfinger ist seit Mitte der 1970er-Jahre Secessions-Mitglied und hat Mitte der 1980er-Jahre mit Adolf Krischanitz und Oskar Putz die umfassende Sanierung des Hauses verantwortet. In diesem lebendigen Gespräch teilt Kapfinger sein geradezu lexikalisches Wissen über Architektur, Stadtplanung, bildende Kunst, Fotografie und Kulturpolitik, nicht nur im historischen Wien um die Jahrhundertwende, sondern auch aus der Perspektive eines aktiven Gestalters.

Diese Folge wurde am 17. Oktober 2025 in der Secession aufgenommen.

Otto...

June Crespo’s sculptural assemblages, which the artist understands as communicating vessels, resonate within our bodies. At times delicate, at others forceful, they always emanate a vital, living quality. Listen to the artist talk about her inspirations and working process.
This episode was recorded on 12 September 2025, the day after the opening of the exhibition:

June Crespo
Danzante
12.9. – 16.11.2025

Most of the works in the exhibition Danzante take their formal vocabulary from the iris and the strelitzia (bird of paradise). Yet the artist is not concerned with representing these plants. Instead of proposing a clas...

Listen to John Smith talk about his most ordinary name and how that possibly has more impact on his work than you’d think; how this inspired him to make the (autofictional) film Being John Smith (2024), one of three films in his Secession show; about the power of language, used both as voice-over and caption, over imagery; and about bad puns.

This episode was recorded on 11 September 2025, shortly before the opening of John’s exhibition:

John Smith
Being John Smith
12.9. – 16.11.2025

In the mid-1970s, John Smith shared the widespread interest in challe...

This episode is a conversation between architect and Atelier Bow-Wow-founding-member Momoyo Kiajima and curator Haris Giannouras. It was recorded right after the opening of the exhibition Suturing Together by Atelier Bow-Wow on 12 September 2025.

Their discussion focuses on care work in architecture, books and their forms in designing and understanding the build environment, 1980s Japanese comedy shows, Sutemi Horiguchi, and the importance of love in building someone’s home.

Atelier Bow-Wow
Suturing Together
12.9. – 16.11.2025

The exhibition Suturing Together includes a site-specific intervention covering almost the entire right arch of the Secession’s foyer, an ext...

Anlässlich seiner Einzelausstellung Shh, die im September 2025 im mumok eröffnet wird, spricht die Kunsthistorikerin Sophia Roxane Rohwetter mit dem Künstler Tobias Pils. Sie unterhalten sich über die Entstehung der Ausstellung, seine ortsspezifische Installation in der Secession im Jahr 2013, die Präsenz historischer Formen in der zeitgenössischen Malerei sowie über seine Freundschaft mit Friederike Mayröcker.

Diese Folge wurde am 30. Mai 2025 in der Secession aufgenommen.

mumok
Tobias Pils Shh
27.9.2025 – 12.4.2026

secession
Tobias Pils Secession
23.11.2013 – 24.1.2014

Tobias Pils, 1971 in Linz geboren, zählt zu den spannendsten malerischen Positionen de...

Im Gespräch mit der Medien- und Filmkünstlerin Constanze Ruhm geht es insbesondere um Werke aus den letzten 20 Jahren, ausgehend von kuratorischen Tätigkeiten, zu denen die Ausstellung Fate of Alien Modes (2003) im Auftrag der Secession zählt, die Diskurszusammenhänge zwischen Film und Kunst ins Licht rückte. Von der Konzeptkunst und vom Interesse für digitale Technologien und mediale Dispositive entwickelten sich die künstlerischen Projekte nach dem Studium Visueller Mediengestaltung bei Peter Weibel hin zur Rekonstruktion filmischer Räume und zur Kritik männlich kodierter Blickregime und Szenarien. Constanze Ruhm erläutert Appropriationsgesten, die sie im Rahmen i...

Luisa Ziaja spricht mit Oliver Ressler über seine künstlerische Praxis, insbesondere über seine Videos und Videoinstallationen der letzten Jahre. Diese setzen sich mit dem Klimakollaps und aktivistischer Organisierung dagegen aus, geben Einblicke in Klimaaktivismen und laden ein zu einem Nachdenken darüber, wie Gesellschaft demokratischer und inklusiver gestaltet werden könnte. Luisa Ziaja kuratierte 2024 die Einzelausstellung "Dog Days Bite Back" von Oliver Ressler im Belvedere 21. Oliver Ressler war von 2007–2013 Mitglied im Vorstand der Secession.

Das Gespräch wurde am 16. Mai 2025 aufgenommen.

Oliver Ressler lebt in Wien und arbeitet an Installationen, Projekten im Außenraum und Filme...

Eva Schlegel spricht mit der Kuratorin Antonia Hoerschelmann über ihre künstlerischen Anfänge, die prägende Zeit in New York und auch über biografische Einflüsse auf ihr Werk. Gemeinsam beleuchten sie entlang ihrer zahlreichen unverwechselbaren Werkserien die Rolle von Raum und Wahrnehmung in ihrem Schaffen und wie diese mittels künstlerischer Strategien wie Licht, Spiegelung und Unschärfe erweitert und in Frage gestellt werden können. Eva Schlegel ist seit langem mit der Secession verbunden: Seit 1995 ist sie Mitglied und 2005 realisierte sie im Hauptraum der Secession in eine beeindruckende ortsspezifische Installation mit Bleiwänden und Spiegelflächen, die von den...

This episode is a conversation between the artist Jeremy Shaw and the curator Damian Lentini. It was recorded on 6 June 2025 in the context of his exhibition, when Jeremy returned to Vienna for the screening of Quantification Trilogy at the mumok.

Jeremy Shaw
Towards Logarithmic Delay
29.5. – 31.8.2025

The exhibition Towards Logarithmic Delay presents three new sculptural works that engage with the concept of border zones and the disorientation brought about by the dissolution of spatial and perceptual thresholds. The first work visitors encounter, Maximum Horizon (2024), comprises a triptych of stained-glass windows – akin to those commonly seen...

Ariane Mueller talks with curator Jeanette Pacher not only about her current exhibition in Secession’s iconic exhibition hall, but also speaks about her experience of initiating projects, sharing space, ideas, and resources, and the importance of collaborating – providing broader insight into her creative practice and understanding as an artist. This episode was recorded on 3 June 2025, a week after the opening of Ariane Mueller’s exhibition:

Ariane Mueller
Fish are folded into the sea just as the sea is folded into fish
29.5. – 31.8.2025

Ariane Mueller’s preoccupation with war, which is at the heart of t...

This episode was recorded on 22 May, during the installation of Francis Offman’s solo exhibition at the Secession. Kamogelo Walaza, a curatorial fellow from South Africa, spoke with the artist about his work and the exhibition:

Francis Offman
Weaving Stories
29.5. – 31.8.2025

The walls of the stairwell that leads to Francis Offman’s exhibition Weaving Stories are covered in dried coffee grounds. The dark tactile material transforms the narrow entrance to the exhibition space on the first floor into an immersive olfactory experience. More

The works of Francis Offman consist of canvases (not mounte...

Stein ist in unser aller Leben omnipräsent, nicht zuletzt in Form der Architekturen, in denen wir wohnen und arbeiten. Mit deren Utopien und Widersprüchen beschäftigt sich Aglaia Konrad in Filmen, Fotografien und Skulpturen. Die Künstlerin ist in den Alpen aufgewachsen. Seitdem begleitet Stein als Urmaterial, das Felsformationen, Berglandschaften, aber auch Architektur bildet, ihr Schaffen. Mehr erfahren

This episode of Secession Podcast: Members features artist Florian Pumhösl in conversation with artist colleague Elisabeth Kihlström. It was recorded at the Secession on 7 November 2024.

Florian Pumhösl, born 1971, is an artist based in Vienna and Munich. Focussing on abstract vocabulary he has been working mostly on reliefs and drawings for the past years. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York, Galerie Buchholz in Berlin, and at Dvir Gallery, Paris.  

Elisabeth Kihlström, born 1988 in Sundborn, Sweden, is a visual artist based in Vienna. Working with sculpture, textil...

This episode is a conversation between the artist Ana Vaz and the curator Damian Lentini. It was recorded on 7 March, 2025 in the context of the exhibition:

Ana Vaz
Meteoro 
8.4. – 18.5.2025

In her film-poems artist and filmmaker Ana Vaz collages images and sounds that revolve around violence and repression, the impact of ecological ruin and the continued colonization of the earth. The deconstruction of the grand narrative of Western modernity that imposes itself across vast territories on this planet lies at the heart of her filmography.

In her exhibition at the Secession, Vaz sho...

This episode looks back at one of the central artistic positions in the group exhibition Forms of the Shadow. Minouk Lim's Currahee – Stand Alone, a floor-to-ceiling installation of painted military blankets, created a striking division of space and, in the context of the exhibition, could also be read in terms of the divided situation on the Korean peninsula, but also in the broader context of military conflicts, and as such this work is exemplary of current political crises and the latent danger of military escalation. More

On the occasion of this group exhibition, a spontaneous series of co...

This episode was recorded on 7 March 2025 in the context of the exhibitions:

Yuki Okumura. Yuki Okumura
and
Big White Playground 
With Miriam Bachmann; Mario Batram; Paul Buschnegg; Said Gärtner; golden salamturtle; Grzegorz Kielawski; Emine Koza; Niklas Hofstetter; Yuki Okumura; Flavio Palasciano; Alex Pasch; Cristina Rüesch; Sebastian Scholz; Paul Spendier; Johanna Steiner; Lorenz Sutter; Kai Philip Trausenegger; Hans Weinberger; Marit Wolters; Márton Zalka 

The so-called white cube is a seemingly “neutral” and “pure” space with plain-white walls that is supposed to ensure the undisturbed autonomy of art. The Hauptraum, the largest galle...

The idea that natural elements can serve as witnesses to history is central to my work. When you look at the landscapes in my projects – what I refer to as ‘landscapes of violence’ or ‘geographies of violence’ – you see how these environments bear witness to historical trauma and conflict. (Ali Cherri)

This episode was recorded on 19 February 2025 in the context of the exhibition:

Ali Cherri
How I Am Monument
6.12.2024 – 23.2.2025

Ali Cherri was born in Beirut and lives and works in Paris. Spanning film, performance, sculpture, drawing, and installation, his work is inspired both...

Diese Folge des Secession Podcast: Members präsentiert die Künstler*innen Helmut und Johanna Kandl im Gespräch mit Kathrin Becker, der Direktorin des KINDL – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin. Johanna Kandl ist seit 1984 Mitglied und war von 1999 bis 2003 und von 2006 bis 2007 im Vorstand der Secession.
Das Gespräch wurde am 11. Oktober 2024 in der Secession aufgenommen.

HELMUT & JOHANNA KANDL
Seit 1997 verheiratet und gemeinsame Arbeit, vor allem bei partizipativen und Rechercheprojekten. Leben und arbeiten in Wien und Berlin.
https://www.hjkandl.at

Helmut Kandl (geb. Schäffer)
Geboren 1953 in Laa an...

In dieser Folge hören Sie den Künstler und ehemaligen Präsidenten der Secession, Matthias Herrmann im Gespräch mit Rike Frank, aufgezeichnet am 17. Juni 2024.

Matthias Herrmann (*1963 in München) war von 1986 bis 1988 Mitglied des Balletts der Wiener Staatsoper. Von 1988 bis 1993 studierte er konzeptuelle Kunst bei Prof. Ernst Caramelle und Brigitte Kowanz an der Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Wien. Von 1997 bis 1999 war er Mitglied des Vorstands der Wiener Secession, zu deren Präsident er 1999 (als jüngster Präsident seit Gustav Klimt) gewählt wurde. Von 2006 bis 2012 war er Professor für Kunst und Fotografie...

“Lately, I have been considering how to get out of a structure in which I am forced to make sense. So, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which 20th century Caribbean poetry did a lot of work around nonsense. (…) I guess it’s very dadaist in a way: destroying the order around you, clearing a path so that other kinds of relationships between objects, ideas and places can happen.” Beatriz Santiago Muñoz in an interview with Andreas Petrossiants, published in Frieze, No. 248, 2024

This episode was recorded on 6 December, 2024 in the context of the exhibition:

Beatr...

This episode is a conversation between the artist Rochelle Feinstein and the curator Damian Lentini. It was recorded on 3 December, 2024 in the context of the exhibition:

Rochelle Feinstein
The Today Show
6.12.2024 – 23.2.2025

For over forty years, the American painter Rochelle Feinstein has developed an oeuvre that infiltrates abstract painting with political, social and environmental concerns. Throughout a series of diverse yet thematically interwoven groups of works, Feinstein cuts, flips, and rearranges printed gestural marks that are then collaged into paintings; she also makes sculptures and prints out of everyday materials. The Today Show presents a...

On the occasion of the group exhibition Forms of the Shadow, a spontaneous series of conversations with the artists who attended the opening in Vienna has evolved into a podcast mini-series. These audio recordings offer fascinating background information on the works and diverse artistic approaches.

“My work deals with tourism, militarism, colonialism, imperialism—forms of power” says Vancouver-based artist Jin-me Yoon. In her conversation with Bettina Spörr, she revealed that her first university degree was in psychology, a field of study that deeply influenced her artistic practice. She talks among many other topics about her work Beneath...

The End of Imagination III is a newly reconfigured installation for The Secession. It features a recreation of the famous 1969 moon landing site, upon which two lunar glitched pillars (over which two flags are draped), are placed, as well as a NASA Lunar Exploration Robot. Via this tableaux, Villar Rojas wonders how the Moon, Mars, or any other extra-terrestrial landscapes brought to us by interplanetary conquest will affect our past, present and future monumentality and its memorialization. What will happen when our terrestrial fictions, cementing nations and identities, travel to outer space? 

In this episode, the artist s...

This episode within the Forms of the Shadow podcast series is dedicated to Lee Kit and his site-specific installation In Broad Daylight (2024). For Lee, whose practice is rooted in painting, the space has become a canvas, and the creation of the work a process of editing the space and himself, similar to the editing of the videos on view. His installations often create an intimate, almost meditative atmosphere with a strong emotional impact. In this way, he succeeds in translating the essence of painting into new artistic forms, creating a fluid experience between image and space.

Forms...

Aufbauend auf dem Gespräch mit der Gastkuratorin Sunjung Kim konzentriert sich diese Podcast-Reihe zu Forms of the Shadow auf die einzelnen Künstler*innen der Ausstellung und beleuchtet ihre Werke.

Diese Folge widmet sich dem Installations- und Soundkünstler Joon Kim, seiner Arbeitsweise mit field recordings und geht Fragen nach Komposition, Manipulation und Arrangements von Klängen nach. Am Ende des Gesprächs sind die drei Tonspuren der Installation in voller Länge zu hören.

In der Secession präsentiert er The Hidden Treasures (2024), ein Soundscape-Projekt, das eine Sammlung von Klängen und Bildern a...

Following a conversation with guest curator Sunjung Kim, this podcast series now focuses on the individual artists in the exhibition, alongside their works.

Recorded on 19 September 2024, this episode focuses on the filmic work of the Danish/Korean artist Jane Jin Kaisen and her operatic multichannel work Burial of this Order – on display in the Gallery of the Secession – as well as her wider practice. At the end of the discussion, four brief audio clips from the film will be played to engage the listener in the artist’s seductive and operatic world.

Forms of the Shadow...

Young In Hong is working across installation, sound, performance, textile and drawing. Her practice often focuses on undervalued cultural practices and seeks for a sense of equality that gently undermines ruling hierarchies. In recent years, Hong has increasingly examined notions of inter-species communication, symbolism and the hybridity of sound, movement and objects in the context of other-than-human voices. More

Young In Hong is one of 18 artists and artist groups featured in Forms of the Shadow, and one of four artists whose works are shown at the Secession and its partner, the Korean Cultural Centre in Vienna. In...

Following a conversation with guest curator Sunjung Kim, this podcast is the first to focus on the individual artists in the exhibition and their works.

This episode, recorded on 20 September 2024, is dedicated to the ambivalence between the deceptive, aesthetically seductive surface and the unexpected abysses hidden behind Kyungah Ham’s conceptual embroidery works. It all began with a North Korean propaganda leaflet the artist found on her parents' doorstep one day and the question, "What if I send these things back to North Korea and communicate with anonymous people and share this strange feeling (...)".

Forms of...

Forms of the Shadow is the first group exhibition at the Secession since 2018, continuing the loose series of guest-curated thematic shows held there at irregular intervals.

In this podcast, recorded on 20 September 2024, the day after the opening, Bettina Spörr speaks with Sunjung Kim about her REAL DMZ PROJECT and how Forms of the Shadow evolved from it. Their conversation also explores Sunjung Kim’s personal motivation to engage with the political division of North and South Korea, as well as her journey to becoming one of South Korea’s most influential curators.

This episode is th...

Katrin Hornek, Karin Pauer, Sabina Holzer, Zosia Hołubowska, and Jeanette Pacher in conversation

testing grounds is an immersive live installation conceived by Katrin Hornek and developed in a collaborative process involving artists as well as researchers and scientists from different fields. It addresses the measurable evidence and effects of radioactive fallout dispersed around the world as a result of heavy testing of nuclear weapons, especially during the Cold War era.

Listen to the artist Katrin Hornek, choreographer Karin Pauer, writer and dancer Sabina Holzer, sound artist Zosia Hołubowska, and the curator Jeanette Pacher ta...

Rosa Hausleithner erzählt im Gespräch mit Sophie Thun von ihren Anfängen als Künstlerin, ihrer Zeit an der Akademie in der Bildhauerklasse von Bruno Gironcoli und wie sich ihre Arbeiten von ortspezifischen, skulptural-architektonischen Interventionen zu gemalten Raumkompositionen entwickelt haben. Diese Folge wurde am 7. Juni 2024 im Podcast-Studio der Secession aufgenommen.

Rosa Hausleithners polychrome Bildräume formieren sich primär in ihren Gedanken. Als kleine, skizzenhafte Linienzeichnungen werden sie mit Blei- und Farbstiften auf Papier fixiert, um dann in Acryl auf Leinwand ausformuliert zu werden. Von der Bildhauerei kommend, baut die 1952 in Wien geborene Künstlerin mit ihr...

The black dome of the Secession attracted everyone's attention in June 2024. The work, entitled Statement, was a highly visible symbol of the dignity of black women. It was part of the exhibition Achievement by Cuban artist Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo, whose work articulates feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial counter-visions, highlighting the achievements of black women and advocating a form of healing. In this conversation with Bettina Spoerr, recorded on 21 June 2024, the artist talks about how she fell in love with the golden dome of the Secession and was inspired to activate the architecture.

Susana Pilar Delahante M...

Zhou Siwei translates the contradictions of living and working in contemporary China into playful, personally fragmented and nonlinear works on canvas and painted objects.
This podcast was recorded on 19 June 2024 in the context of the exhibition:

Zhou Siwei

I Sold What I Grow

21.6. – 8.9.2024

Probing the ambivalence of digital technologies, the unceasing global traffic in goods, and the sleeplessness of the late-capitalist era, Zhou interweaves diverse visual and cultural influences in ways that make everyday items and signs feel at once familiar and alien, accommodating a wide range of interpretations. More

In dieser Folge hören Sie den Architekten Hermann Czech im Gespräch mit Andreas Spiegl, aufgezeichnet am 25. April 2024. Hermann Czech ist Ehrenmitglied der Secession und Preisträger des Großen Österreichischen Staatspreises 2024.

Hermann Czech (*1936 in Wien), studierte Architektur an der TH Wien und an der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien bei Ernst A. Plischke. 1958 und 1959 nahm er an den Seminaren von Konrad Wachsmann an der Salzburger Sommerakademie teil. Erste architektonische Arbeiten ab 1960, von 1963 bis 1967 schrieb er architekturkritische Texte für Die Furche. Ab den 1970er-Jahren Projekte und Realisierungen in verschiedenen Planungsmaßstäben. Veröf...

This episode is a conversation between Simone Fattal and Jeanette Pacher, the curator of the exhibition. It was recorded on June 19, 2024 in the context of:

Simone Fattal

metaphorS

21.6. – 8.9.2024

In her exhibition metaphorS, Simone Fattal presents bodies of work from different periods in her career and in a variety of media, including fired clay and ceramic sculptures, paintings, and collages. With her works, she tells stories of humanity, culture, history, and the present. Conflict, consensus, nature, faith, and trust are central concerns. Despite (or precisely because of) the artist’s nomadic life, her...