On the New

What is going on in local art scenes, studios, and alternative exhibition spaces? And how can one exhibition capture the diversity of the production and presentation of art?

Belvedere 21 already explored these questions with the 2019 show On the New. Young Scenes in Vienna, developing a dynamic, collaborative format that involved multiple contributors and a shared curatorial authorship. In addition to presenting eighteen individual artistic positions, twelve Viennese project spaces hosted rotating exhibitions within the show, each kicked off with a ‘midissage’ (midway opening) complemented by discursive events and performances.

In 2023, On the New. Viennese Scenes and Beyond picks up this thread and expands on the original concept. In order to provide a broader view of contemporary approaches, strategies, and discourses, the survey now also includes artists and project spaces from other parts of Austria. In an expanded dynamic, the show presents around fourty-five artists and twenty-four exhibitions within the exhibition—curated by individual project spaces—and thus offers fresh perspectives on what art can be today, on its themes, aesthetics, and forms of expression, and how it is perceived.

This polyphonic tracing of the "new"–despite the ambivalence this term and its function imply especially in contemporary art–presents no grand overview, but rather an image of a growing entity without beginning or end, in perpetual flux.