ZONE1

– viennacontemporary 2025

ZONE1 is viennacontemporary’s signature platform for emerging talent. Now in its tenth year, this acclaimed section presents solo exhibitions by ten outstanding artists under 40 with strong connections to Austria.

For this year’s ZONE1, Curator Aliaksei Barysionak brings together artistic practices that engage with themes of migration and displacement and critical feminist perspectives.
Featuring a wide range of media, ZONE1 2025 highlights positions that are integral to Vienna’s contemporary art scene but often remain underrepresented within Austria’s institutional frameworks.

STATEMENT BY THE CURATOR

This year’s ZONE1 turns a critical lens on a world twisted by its contradictions. Anchored in the vibrant artistic life of Vienna’s multifaceted landscape, ZONE1 connects emerging voices that speak to us in a clever, intense, and persuasive language, while engaging viewers with direct and visceral approaches. Rather than adhering to a single aesthetic or medium, the selection navigates a diverse terrain of formal and political inquiry—ranging from feminist figuration and social critique to conceptual strategies addressing memory, displacement, and power. Some artists speak directly from histories of rupture and dislocation; others offer incisive reflections on systems of control, technological obsolescence, and the materialities of everyday life. Oil painting and digitally altered images register violence and dispossession. Plastic bags deliver unexpected truths. Furniture forms interrogate ownership, administration, and inherited authority. Slate and stained steel carry traces of memory and failed innovation. Standing at the intersection of the political and the aesthetic, ZONE1 addresses questions about the diverse conditions we bear in a moment of planetary emergency. Sometimes with playfulness, sometimes with stark immediacy.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Melanie Ebenhoch | GALERIE BRUGGER

Hélène Fauquet | MEYER*KAINER

Tobias Izsó | Christine König Galerie

Terese Kasalicky | GALERIE3

Kateryna Lysovenko | TBA

Fabian Reetz | SOLO Gallery

Driton Selmani | Galerie Ernst Hilger

Natália Sýkorová | VUNU

Huda Takriti | CRONE

Dominika Trapp | Kisterem

[Quelle: http://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/https://www.viennacontemporary.at/en/program/zone1/]

Christine König Galerie, Melanie Ebenhoch, Hélène Fauquet, Galerie 3 Wien, Galerie Brugger, Galerie Crone Wien, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Tobias Izsó, Terese Kasalicky, Kisterem, Kateryna Lysovenko, Fabian Reetz, SOLO Gallery, Driton Selmani, Natália Sýkorová, TBA, Huda Takriti, Dominika Trapp, VUNU Gallery

Objects

(Archival material, Publications)

2025 Information: Dominika Trapp. Like a ring, sliding shut on some quick thing. kisterem (Archival object)
2025 Information: Driton Selmani. Galerie Ernst Hilger (Archival object)
2025 Information: Hélène Fauquet. Species of the Pod. Meyer Kainer (Archival object)
2025 Information: Huda Takriti. Revisitation. In Three Acts. Crone Wien. 2025 (Archival object)