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12 September 2025

Textile Art, Awards, and Architecture: Viennacontemporary 2025 Opened with Dialogue and Discovery

Abaseh Mirvali and Coraly von Welser speaking in front of Ulrike Müller’s tapestry during the Viennacontemporary 2025 press tour.

A Welcoming Start to Viennacontemporary

The 2025 Viennacontemporary international art fair opened on September 11 with a press tour for invited media. Artistic Advisor Abaseh Mirvali personally welcomed journalists at the entrance to Halle D at the Messe Wien, where the press conference took place, and engaged in casual conversation with them before the official program began. Mirvali told Fashion.at that her outfit was a creation of Austrian fashion designer Jana Wieland. The designer won the City of Vienna Fashion Award in 2018 and owns a store in Vienna. Her collections are stocked across Austria, from Bad Gastein to Lech am Arlberg and Brunico in South Tyrol, as well as internationally.

First Stop: Ulrike Müller's Award-Winning Tapestry

After the press conference, the press tour with Mirvali started. It was moderated by Head Guide Coraly von Welser. The first stop was Ulrike Müller's tapestry, a key work recognized with the Art for Stronger Democracies Prize in 2024. Müller's piece, The Conference of the Animals (A Mural), reinterprets Erich Kästner's children's book as a vivid abstraction and commentary on collective action and diversity. The work, represented by MEYER*KAINER, was previously shown at Queens Museum, New York.

Awards and Highlights at the Fair

Some award winners will be announced during the runtime of Viennacontemporary from September 11 to 14. One of these prizes, the viennacontemporary | Bildrecht SOLO Award, was announced on September 11, the opening day of the fair: artist Natalia Sýkorová and Vunu Gallery received the €6,000 award for their outstanding solo presentation in the ZONE1 section. The award, organized with Bildrecht, supports emerging artists and galleries that present ambitious solo booths, with the prize money divided equally between artist and gallery.

Natalia Sýkorová's work has previously drawn attention from Fashion.at and was featured in an article about the fair several days ago.

Benches that Speak of Transition

The press tour was extensive, yet not long enough to visit every booth in detail. Fortunately, the newly installed Seating Variations (Bench #1, #2, #3) provided a welcome pause. Created by Lukas Thaler, winner of the JP Immobilien Sculpture Project, the engraved limestone benches function as both resting spots and conceptual artworks.

Thaler, born in 1989 in Hall in Tirol and based in Vienna, crafted the benches from the same limestone used, for example, in Vienna's Parliament building. The surfaces bear inscriptions such as "Everything" and "Incredibly Vague," evoking a state of transition. As Artistic Advisor Abaseh Mirvali noted in conversation with the artist, the work, with these fragments of a demolished structure or one just taking shape, offers a multi-layered narrative—also a fitting metaphor for an art fair that is constantly reinventing itself.


Image: Artistic Advisor Abaseh Mirvali and Head Guide Coraly von Welser speaking in front of Ulrike Müller’s tapestry during the Viennacontemporary 2025 press tour on September 11, 2025. Photo: © Fashion.at