18 June 2026

Print Art on a T-Shirt? mumok Opening Invites Visitors to Wear the Collection

Kate Millett's 1972 installation 'Terminal Piece', showing the artwork that inspired the title and central concept of the new exhibition at Vienna's mumok.

Quick Read

• Visitors to Vienna's mumok can bring a T-shirt or fabric bag on 20 June 2026 and have it screen-printed live with a surprise motif from the museum's collection.
• The activity is part of the opening celebration for "Terminal Piece", a new exhibition spanning several levels of the museum.
• Around 400 works from the mumok collection are brought into dialogue with loans and new commissions, exploring ideas of looking, participation and performance.
• Workshops, costume sales, flower-making and guided tours turn the museum into a place where visitors can actively take part rather than only observe.

From museum wall to wardrobe

How do you get an artwork onto your own T-shirt or fabric tote bag without buying official merchandise? At the opening celebration of "Terminal Piece" on Saturday, 20 June 2026, Vienna's mumok offers an unusual answer: visitors can bring their own textiles and have them printed on site by the Viadukt screen-printing workshop using selected images from the museum's collection.

The exact motifs have deliberately not been announced in advance, making the live printing itself part of the day's surprise. Given the exhibition's focus and the breadth of the collection, participants may encounter imagery connected with post-war avant-garde art, conceptual practices or performance-related works, but the museum has not revealed which artworks will be available for printing.

In that sense, art becomes literally wearable, while the act of choosing and carrying an image beyond the museum echoes the exhibition's interest in participation and viewership.

A five-act exhibition built around one artwork

The live printing forms part of the opening of "Terminal Piece", the first major exhibition introduced under mumok Director Fatima Hellberg. Conceived across multiple levels of the museum and structured like an opera in five acts, the project assembles approximately 400 works from the museum's own holdings together with loans and newly commissioned pieces.

Its point of departure is Kate Millett's 1972 installation "Terminal Piece", recently acquired by the museum. The work resembles both a stage and a cage: a seated female mannequin faces visitors from behind wooden bars, reversing the usual museum relationship between observer and observed. Rather than simply looking at art, viewers become part of the situation themselves.

This idea reflects the museum's broader philosophy that seeing is an active process. As expressed in the exhibition introduction, participation begins with perception itself.

The theatrical dimension continues through the scenography by renowned stage and costume designer Anna Viebrock, who transforms the entrance level into an environment where exhibition spaces and behind-the-scenes museum functions intersect. Visitors move through spaces that blur the distinction between display and production, making the institution itself part of the experience.

Interactive opening day: from costumes to symbolic dolls

The opening programme extends this participatory approach well beyond the galleries. Between 14:00 and 19:00, the neighbouring Volkstheater presents a costume flea market where original stage costumes can be purchased, inviting visitors to literally step into another role.

Nearby, artist Birke Gorm leads the "poppets" workshop, where participants create small figures from straw, hay and flowers. While the activity appears playful, it draws attention to questions of labour, social structures and production systems embedded in everyday materials.

Later in the afternoon, visitors collectively assemble a large floral garland that will remain in the museum as part of the opening presentation, turning a communal craft activity into a temporary artistic contribution.

Hourly introductory tours between 14:00 and 18:00 provide concise insights into the exhibitions and their themes, offering another way to engage with the collection beyond independent viewing.

A museum as a place to take part

The opening of "Terminal Piece" signals more than the launch of a new exhibition. It marks the first large public presentation shaped by Hellberg's directorship and illustrates a broader vision of the museum as an interactive environment rather than a passive display space.

Visitors are encouraged to experience art through different forms of engagement: by wearing printed images from the collection, contributing handmade objects, joining discussions during guided tours or simply reconsidering their own role as observers. In this framework, participation becomes both physical and intellectual.

For one Saturday afternoon in Vienna, the boundary between artwork, exhibition and audience becomes intentionally porous—and perhaps the most memorable souvenir is not something bought in a museum shop but a self-printed T-shirt carrying a still-undisclosed fragment of the collection.

Image: Kate Millett's 'Terminal Piece' (1972), the installation that gives the new mumok exhibition its title and serves as its conceptual starting point. © mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien; photo by Chie Nishio / The Kate Millett Trust.