Where trucks used to open the opera, Vienna gets a new exhibition house. The photo Arsenal Vienna in the area of the same name in the southeast of the city becomes the Center for Photography and Lens Based Media. This closes a large thematic gap in the spectrum of Viennese cultural life. A future-oriented modern museum building was created in the only 18-month and elaborate conversion phase of a workshop building, which opened on March 21, 2025 in the 19a property in the Arsenal, 1030 Vienna.
Mayor Michael Ludwig: “With the photo Arsenal Vienna, our cultural metropolis has become a large piece of rich, versatile and more worth living again. This new art hall for photography of the present will not only be an attraction for the Viennese and photo -loving enthusiasts from all over the world, but also forms a cultural meeting point that radiates far into the neighborhood. Together with others, with the film museum Lab, test stages from Burgeater and State Opera, the workshops of Art for Art and the Army History Museum, can develop its unique potential as a new cultural center. ”
Cultural City Councilor Veronica Kaup-Hasler: “Behind former garage goers is now opening up a hall for photography. This new, Vienna -enriching and shining fixed point photo arsenal Vienna shows how culture can open in so many ways to open spaces: as a places of presentation, expertise, mediation and encounter with others. Especially at a time that is characterized by the effectiveness of photographic and film images, this place is urgently needed in its whole Diversity. “
With up to 10 exhibitions per year, the photo Arsenal Vienna shows the entire range of the medium – a combination of young talents, undiscovered positions and internationally renowned artists.
The new photo Arsenal Vienna is located with modern exhibition areas on the ground floor of a three -story historical brick building with around 1,000 square meters. Next to it is a museum shop and a catering area. On the upper floors there are your own department for mediation, which has workshops and its own darkroom and the office space. The opening of the photo Arsenal Vienna marks the creation of a new cultural cluster with the Austrian Film Museum Lab in the same building, the army history museum, the rehearsal platforms of the Burgtheater and the State Opera.
The renovation was planned by Malek Herbst Architects (Vienna), Meyer Voggenreiter Projects with Wolfgang Zeh (Cologne) and in cooperation with the owner Art for Art. The investment costs amount to a total of three million euros.
Photo Arsenal Vienna is devoted to photographic archives in the two opening exhibitions.
Magnum. A World of Photography (March 22nd to June 1, 2025)
When do certain photographs become icons and burn into collective memory? Why are they published and how do you later end up in the archive? The opening exhibition “Magnum. A World of Photography” of the photo Arsenal Vienna provides insights into undiscovered and secret working structures of the legendary photo agency Magnum Photos.
“Probably almost every person in the world knows at least one photo from Magnum. We explain in our exhibition.says Felix Hoffmann, curator of the exhibition and artistic director of the photo Arsenal Vienna.
The group exhibition “Magnum. A World of Photography” focuses on the work processes of the famous photo agency and addresses the social importance of photography as a broad cultural technology. For the first time, parts of the Magnum Archive are made accessible. In the past, such insights into the raw material and the creation of a “finished” photo were unimaginable – the selection of the recordings, the work with contact sheets and the production of the deductions were largely hidden from the public.
In the exhibition, these previously invisible processes are traced for the first time. Visitors can experience the creation of a photo up close and look over the shoulder of the Magnum photographer in their work – from Robert Capa to Inge Morath to Eli Reed.
In chronological order, the exhibition shows over 300 photographs and objects from seven decades of agency and world history. These include reports from the Second World War, icons such as Che Guevara, Muhammad Ali and Malcom X, mourners on the railway tracks after the death of Robert F. Kennedy, life in the New York subway or portraits of the British royal family.
The last chapter of the exhibition shows that contemporary photo practices are still closely associated with the analogous footage, the strategies of narration and traditional reportage photography. Three photographers of the younger and youngest Magnum generations – Susan Meiselas, Bieke Deporer and Rafal̸ Milach – deal with historical approaches and thinks on from a current socio -political perspective.
Simon Lehner. Clean Thoughts. Clean Images. (22. März bis 1. Juni 2025)
With “Clean Thoughts. Clean Images” Photo Arsenal Vienna shows the first comprehensive institutional solo exhibition by Simon Lehner (* 1996) in Austria.
On the basis of an archive from childhood and youth of the artist, which includes around 45,000 image files, Lehner deals with power structures, toxic masculinity and their effects on society and human psyche in his paintings, installations and video work.
On the foundation of his archive, Lehner uses the photographic-technical parameters of the formation of the formation as a basis and plays with both analog and digital traces: negative edges, markings or Moiré effects, i.e. grid errors in the scanning process and image printing remain visible. The images are milled into wooden panels in a further step. These transferred landscapes grow three -dimensional into the room or exceed the edge of their frame. With the help of a robot, the painting surface completely dissolves from the two -dimensionality of photography: they are physically transferred to this relief structure in a painting process, with the machine and artist alternating during the manufacturing process.
Grand Opening Photo Arsenal Vienna
On March 21, the photo Arsenal Vienna – the new exhibition house for photography and Lens Based Media of the City of Vienna – opens its final at home in the Arsenal. On around 1,000 m2 of exhibition space, the photo Arsenal Vienna shows the entire range of the medium with around 8 to 10 exhibitions per year – the program combines internationally renowned artists with young talents and undiscovered positions.
Datum: 21.03.2025, 7:00 p.m. – 22.03.2025, 02:00 a.m.
Art: Exhibitions
Ort: Photo Arsenal Vienna
Arsenal object 19a
1030 Wien
Austria
URL: https://www.fotoarsenalwien.at/de/ausstellung/veranstaltung/eroeffnung-foto-arsenal-wien-2025