Lebt und arbeitet in Wien Talks: Curating Lebt und arbeitet in Wien
Phileas, Opernring 17, 1010 Vienna
2 June 2026, 6.30pm – 8pm
With Daniel Baumann, Michelle Cotton, Monika Georgieva moderated by Anna Hugo.
A collaboration between Kunsthalle Wien and Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art in connection with the exhibition Lebt und arbeitet in Wien: Contemporary Art from Vienna at Kunsthalle Wien.
What does it mean to curate an exhibition dedicated to a city’s contemporary art scene? This conversation brings together the curators of Lebt und arbeitet in Wien – Daniel Baumann, Michelle Cotton and Monika Georgieva – offering a behind-the-scenes perspective on this extensive survey of Vienna’s contemporary art scene. Developed collaboratively, the exhibition also became a process of exchange between curators approaching Vienna from different perspectives and connections to its artistic community. In conversation with Anna Hugo (Visitor and Public Programme, Phileas), the curators will reflect on how their perceptions of the local art scene evolved throughout the project, what they learned from one another during the process and what questions and insights remain after bringing such an ambitious exhibition into being.
The talk is free of charge and will be in English.
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Daniel Baumann is an art historian, author and curator. He lives and works in Basel. From 1996 to 2014, he was curator of the Adolf Wölfli Foundation at the Kunstmuseum Bern. In 2003, he curated Junge Szene at the Secession in Vienna and, in 2004, began an ongoing exhibition series in Tbilisi. From 2008 to 2013, he co-directed the Basel exhibition space New Jerseyy together with Tobias Madison, Emanuel Rossetti and Dan Solbach. Together with Dan Byers and Tina Kukielski, he was curator of the Carnegie International 2013 at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Alongside Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philip Ursprung and Xue Tan, he is a curator of the annually held Engadin Art Talks. He writes for magazines such as Spike Art Magazine and Ursula and from 2015 to 2025 he served as director of Kunsthalle Zürich. He currently teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts and is a curator at Casa São Roque in Porto. -
Michelle Cotton is Artistic Director of Kunsthalle Wien. Before working in Vienna she was Head of Artistic Programmes and Content at Mudam, Luxembourg (2019–24); Director of Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015–19); Senior Curator at Firstsite, Colchester (2010–15); and recipient of the 6th Curatorial Bursary at Cubitt, London, where she directed the programme from 2009 to 2010. She has curated over sixty exhibitions including solo exhibitions by Richard Hawkins, Ibrahim Mahama, Diego Marcon, Peter Halley, Sung Tieu, Jeremy Deller and Josh Smith and group surveys such as Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991, Post-Capital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Age and Xerography.
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Monika Georgieva is an independent curator. She lives and works in Vienna. In 2020, she co-founded, together with the artist Aaron Amar Bhamra, the independent exhibition space Laurenz for artistic experiments and discourse. She also teaches in the fields of architecture and curatorial practice. From 2023 to 2025, she served as Artistic Director of Kunstverein Eisenstadt. She is an alumna and former fellow of the de Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam and one of the initiators of the first Curatorial Summer School, which was launched in Amsterdam in 2024.
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