Austria
The Heidi Horten Collection in Vienna, between art, architecture and experimentation
In the historic heart of Vienna is the Heidi Horten Collection, a museum dedicated to Classical Modernism and contemporary art. An avant-garde venue that houses international masterpieces, a sculpture garden, a Tea Room and, of course, temporary exhibitions.
By Redazione | 15/05/2025 14:16
Vienna has had a new temple of modern and contemporary art for a few months now: it is the Heidi Horten Collection, a museum that has already become a new stop in the Austrian capital for lovers of modern and contemporary art since the fall of 2024, that is, since the opening of the permanent Klimt ⇄ Warhol exhibition, which showcases 55 highlights of art from the early 20th century to the present day. Located in the historic heart of Vienna, the home of the Heidi Horten Collection offers a museum experience based on a dialogue between art, architecture and experimentation.
The museum is not only a showcase for one of Europe's most prestigious private collections, but also aims to be a space of discovery and inspiration. Even before crossing the entrance, visitors are greeted by a sculpture garden, placed right in front of the former Habsburg city palace. An introduction that sets the tone for the tour: living, visible, accessible art. The building itself is a work of art: thanks to spectacular and innovative architecture, the structure is transformed into a "Gesamtkunstwerk," a total work of art designed to enhance the masterpieces it houses. Inside, every room is designed to welcome and enhance the visitor, who moves through an environment that is both evocative and functional.
One of the museum's most striking spaces is the "Tea Room" on the second floor: a neoclassical environment reconceived by Austrian artists Markus Schinwald and Hans Kupelwieser as a hybrid of drawing room and Wunderkammer, the famous "chamber of wonders" of the Central European tradition. Here, precious objects and artistic crafts from three centuries tell a story of elegance, collector's taste and passion for detail.
Central to the exhibition identity of the Heidi Horten Collection, however, is the aforementioned permanent exhibition Klimt ⇄ Warhol. Modern Masterpieces: Empowering Minds, Inspiring Hearts. The title sums up the museum's ambition: to offer a comprehensive, top-level overview of 20th-century art, touching minds and hearts with impactful works. The itinerary, set up by Markus Schinwald himself, exhibits a sequence of international masterpieces by the major protagonists of modern and contemporary art: from Francis Bacon to Georg Baselitz, from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Marc Chagall, from Lucio Fontana to Damien Hirst, passing through Gustav Klimt, Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and many others.
The visit can be accompanied by the Smartify audio guide, a free service that enriches the tour with timely and engaging information, or by private guided tours and creative workshops organized in the museum's atelier. Either way, what remains is a profound impression: that of having traversed a century of art through its most powerful and original voices.
But the Heidi Horten Collection is not limited to the permanent exhibition. Beginning September 19, 2025, and running throughMarch 8, 2026, the museum's rooms will host a temporary exhibition entitled The Line | The Line. From Drawing to Line in Space. An exhibition that explores an element as simple as it is essential-the line-transforming it into an interpretive key to the history of modern and contemporary art.
Conceived as a journey, the exhibition starts in early 20th-century Vienna, passes through the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, touches on the experiments of the 1960s and reaches the most current forms of artistic research. The line is transformed: from an instrument of naturalistic representation to an autonomous, abstract, spatial element. Some works develop as large drawings in space, made with neon, cables, wires, magnetic tape. Among the artists in the exhibition we find some of the fundamental names in twentieth-century and contemporary art: Basquiat, Flavin, Fontana, Gormley, Haring, Jawlensky, Jürgenssen, Klee, Klimt, Kowanz, Kubin, Lichtenstein, Matisse, Picasso, Polke, Schiele, Twombly, Warhol. Alongside these, thanks to prestigious loans from public and private collections, the exhibition features works by Marcel Duchamp, Wassily Kandinsky, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Zilvinas Kempinas, Piero Manzoni, Agnes Martin, Vera Molnár, François Morellet, Helga Philipp, Giulia Piscitelli, Dieter Roth, Fred Sandback and Sonia Sanoja.
The highlight of the exhibition is thesite-specific installation by renowned Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota: a weave of hundreds of thank-you letters, written by visitors and suspended in a network of red threads that runs through the exhibition space. A visible weave of invisible emotions, in which the line becomes a symbol of bonds, memories, shared thoughts. The exhibition The Line is not only an aesthetic but also a conceptual journey: it invites us to reflect on the role of the line in art and life, on its ability to describe, define, evoke.
The Heidi Horten Collection is open daily, except Tuesdays, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Thursdays, the hours are extended until 9:00 p.m. to accommodate evening audiences as well. Full ticket: € 16 per person. Groups (from 10 people): € 13 per person. Free admission for children and teens (up to the age of 19). Free audioguide (via Smartify app on your smartphone). As a side program, the Heidi Horten Collection also offers private guided tours and creative workshops.
