Gisèle Vienne
Phileas, Opernring 17, Vienna
1 October 2025 – 17 January 2026
Opening: 30 September, 7-9pm
Gisèle Vienne, installation view of L’Etang, 2020 at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin. Photo: Estelle Hanania © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024
This autumn, we are pleased to present a selection of works by Franco-Austrian artist Gisèle Vienne on the occasion of two recent international projects co-produced by Phileas. The exhibition is based on her 2024 solo presentation at Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, curated by Anna Gritz, and her participation in this year‘s edition of SITE Santa Fe International in New Mexico, USA, curated by Cecilia Alemani.
Vienne’s multifaceted practice as an artist, choreographer, and director spans sculpture, film, photography, and theatre, which are closely interwoven throughout her work. The exhibition at Phileas marks the first presentation of her sculptural and photographic practice in Austria, featuring her life-sized dolls whose, unsettling physical and psychological presence plays a central role in Vienne’s artistic expression.
From an early age, Gisèle Vienne was trained in visual arts by Dorothéa Vienne-Pollak, studied dance, and music, and later philosophy, and puppeteering. Over the past twenty years, her work has toured in Europe, Asia, and America, among others the productions and films Showroomdummies (2001 – 2020), I Apologize (2004), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008),This Is How You Will Disappear (2010), LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011), The Ventriloquists Convention (2015) in collaboration with Puppentheater Halle, Crowd (2017), L’Étang (2021), and EXTRA LIFE (2023).
Vienne has frequently exhibited her works in museums, among them the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva and Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. In 2024/2025 she presented simultaneously two exhibitions for Haus am Waldsee and Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin.