VIENNA ART WEEK 2025 at the MAK

TURNING PAGES: Artists’ Books of the Present

VIENNA ART WEEK at the MAK on Sunday, 9 November, revolves around the TURNING PAGES: Artists’ Books of the Present exhibition. The book as artistic medium plays a key role in the praxis of Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cokes, Isa Genzken, Birgit Jürgenssen, R.H. Quaytman, Ed Ruscha, Michael Snow, Sol LeWitt, as well as in the contemporary work of many young artists in Austria and abroad. Books are used as instruments to create poetic visions and to broaden the scope of concept art. The artists’ books in the TURNING PAGES exhibition inspire discussion of gender roles and sociopolitical issues that document the changes of our time. The book is at the same time a form of cultural memory and commemoration. Artists in the exhibition experiment with this medium, transcending traditional boundaries between image, text, material, film, and music—against the backdrop of our digital world.

Exhibition space with display cases and books

Bookcover with text "Ravers saw themselves as the first trans youth unity movement"

Sun, 9.11.2025

2.30 pm
Guided tour of the exhibition
TURNING PAGES: Artists’ Books of the Present
with simultaneous translation into Austrian sign language

Admission and participation free with registration
Meeting point: MAK Columned Main Hall
Register here

4 pm
Lecture
More Than Just Words—Experimental Poetry and Visual Art
Vanessa Joan Müller, curator and author
MAK Columned Main Hall

The visualization of writing has been a defining element of art since the beginning of the 20th century. The performative arts later activated the tonal dimension of poetic language and showcased linguistic excess. This lecture explains how experimental poetry expands from the book into three-dimensional space, freeing language from effective significance and supplying its own semantically innovative letters and words.

Admission and participation free
Please register here

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The exhibition TURNING PAGES: Artists’ Books of the Present, along with its supporting program and the accompanying publication, is part of the interdisciplinary Creative Europe project AbeX, funded by the European Union.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.