8 September 2025  Back from Summer: Vienna Gets ArtsyIt's Monday, the second week of September, and it feels like Austria is collectively back from the summer break. School has started, inboxes are full again – and invitations to exhibitions and events are rolling in. At Fashion.at, the big topic is what not to miss this week and next. Fashion Week is just around the corner, but before the catwalk lights go up, there's an unmissable highlight: Viennacontemporary opens on September 11 at Messe Wien.97 Galleries, 23 Countries, and Three Curated SectionsViennacontemporary 2025 marks the fair's 11th edition and presents an impressive 97 galleries and five institutions from 23 countries, making Vienna a meeting point for East–West cultural dialogue. This year, the fair brings three curated sections – ZONE1, CONTEXT, and STATEMENT: Realities Building – with 37 first-time exhibitors and a strong representation from Central and Eastern Europe.A regular highlight is ZONE1, curated this year by Aliaksei Barysionak, which focuses on artists under 40 with a strong connection to Austria. The selection explores migration, displacement, and feminist perspectives, presenting emerging voices who mix aesthetics, politics, and experimentation. Preview: Natalia Sýkorová and the Poetics of SurvivalAmong the featured artists is Natália Sýkorová (born 1998, Slovakia), whose dystopian installations explore the entanglement of biological and technological processes and the climate crisis. Her pieces often combine alluring, polished steel constructions with a sense of unease – like survival tools from a future where ecosystems have merged with machines.For her artist portrait, Sýkorová chose a fashion-editorial-like image, wearing clothing by Thibaut Knapp and styled by Fairy Queen – the kind of shot that wouldn't look out of place in an avant-garde magazine spread. Her exhibition view from Distant Endless Hum shows her signature cool-toned metallic structures that seem to be both protective and threatening. Sýkorová, who was an artist-in-residence at MuseumsQuartier in 2023, will present a solo project with VUNU in ZONE1. Dominika Trapp: Layers of Tradition and TraumaAnother ZONE1 artist is Dominika Trapp (born 1988, Budapest), whose portrait shows her in traditional clothing, connecting her work to Hungarian rural heritage. Her triptych I Am the Center of an Atrocity (2025) confronts the viewer with raw imagery of blood, bones, and the female body, exploring childbirth as both a natural process and a site of vulnerability. Trapp's art links personal experience with historical narratives, giving voice to women whose stories often remained unspoken.More Than an Art Fair: A Mirror of SocietyFashion.at will continue to explore and decode the artworks presented at Viennacontemporary – not just to report on them, but to use them as lenses that shift our perception of reality. In a world saturated with headlines and breaking news, art offers alternative angles, a chance to recalibrate our view on society and its contradictions.Editorial Note: The art fair Parallel Vienna – which runs parallel to viennacontemporary and inspired its name – opens already one day earlier, on September 10. Visitors can also opt for a Combo Ticket that grants access to both fairs. More details are available at parallelvienna.com. Image: Artist Natália Sýkorová lies inside one of her sculptural metal installations, barefoot, wearing futuristic layered clothing. The installation may recall a futuristic workout machine, its sleek industrial design contrasting with the artist’s body — her hand transformed into an alien-like mechanical prosthesis, suggesting a strange hybrid of human and machine. Photo: © Natália Sýkorová, VUNU / Natalia Evelyn Bencicova |