Secession Podcast

Artists Katherine Hubbard and Sophie Thun explore how Hubbard's work is positioned within queer feminist art and critically engages with the tradition of analogue photography. The conversation was recorded during the installation of the exhibition on 7 June 2026.

Katherine Hubbard
The Great Room
12.6. – 30.8.2026

How do you capture the inner life of a person whose reality no longer aligns with the outer world? And how do you remain in relation to someone who is both intimately familiar and irreversibly changing?

Katherine Hubbard began her five-year project The Great Room in 2020, at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, when her mother, Antonette Berger, became increasingly unwell and the artist became her primary caretaker. It took several months in a time of anxiety and isolation until Berger was diagnosed with LATE (limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy), a form of dementia. Hubbard has described this diagnosis as both necessary and insufficient: a gesture towards control and classification that ultimately fails to grasp the lived, shifting reality of her mother’s condition. It is precisely this gap that the project inhabits. More

Katherine Hubbard (b. Philadelphia, PA, 1981) considers analog photography as a mimesis of the body and asks how its procedures might be called upon to investigate social politics, history, and narrative. In her photographs the positioning of one’s body has an essential relationship to how one processes images, exploring this encounter as a time-based experience. Hubbard’s writing practice forms the core of her performances, harnessing the malleability of vision to frame a politics of looking. Hubbard is a 2024 Guggenheim fellow in photography and received her MFA in 2010 from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. She is Associate Professor and MFA Photography Program Director at Pratt Institute, School of Art in Brooklyn, NY.

Solo exhibitions include The great room, Company Gallery, New York (2023); Avoid glancing blows, Company Gallery, New York (2020); Katherine Hubbard, Higher Pictures, New York (2018); stages, Baxter St. Camera Club of New York, New York (2017); and Bring your own lights, The Kitchen, New York (2016). Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions including Time Management Techniques, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Ecstatic Land, Marfa Ballroom, Texas; A Collection of Slow Events, The Luminary, St. Louis, Missouri; The Artist’s Museum, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Greater New York, MoMA PS1. Hubbard’s performances have been presented at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas; Konstfack, Stockholm, Sweden; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her work is included as part of the permanent collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Sophie Thun (*1985, lives and works in Vienna) works primarily with analogue photography techniques, their spaces, processes and production and exhibition conditions. Thun grew up in Warsaw and completed her master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in both Vienna and Krakow. Thun has been a member of the board of the Secession since 2021, where she had a solo exhibition in 2020; from 2023 to 2025 she was interim professor of the photography class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Since 2026, she has been Professor of Artistic Photography at the Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast.
Programmed by the board of the Secession.

Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed
(2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard
Audio Editor: Paul Macheck
Executive Producer: Bettina Spörr

British-Nigerian artist, filmmaker, and researcher Onyeka Igwe talks with curator Jeanette Pacher about her project No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame (2024/26) that lends its title also to her solo show; her interest in sound, especially protest songs, and her love for sacred harp singing, filming in the abandoned Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos, and her iterative practice. Their conversation was recorded on 11 June 2026 at the Secession.

Onyeka Igwe
No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame
12.6. – 30.8.2026

In the exhibition, two video works unfold in close relation to one another. The film traces the afterlives of British colonialism in Nigeria through the abandoned site of the former Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos – once a key outpost of the Colonial Film Unit’s propaganda apparatus. Today, the building stands in disrepair. The images once housed there are difficult to access – not only due to their material degradation, but also because of a broader reluctance to confront what they contain. Presented on the window front, the moving image blends with the institution’s architecture and urban surroundings, situating its sonic and visual field within the specific conditions of its display. More

Onyeka Igwe is a London-born & based moving image artist and researcher. Her work is aimed at the question: how do we live together? Not to provide a rigid answer as such, but to pull apart the nuances of mutuality and co-existence in our deeply individualized world. Onyeka's practice figures sensorial, spatial and counter-hegemonic ways of knowing as central to that task. For her, the body, archives and narratives both oral and textual act as a mode of enquiry that makes possible the exposition of overlooked histories. The work comprises untying strands and threads, anchored by a rhythmic editing style, as well as close attention to the dissonance, reflection and amplification that occurs between image and sound.

Solo exhibitions include our generous mother, Tate Britain (2025), history is a living weapon in yr hand, Bonington Gallery and Peer, UK (2024), A Repertoire of Protest (No Dance, No Palaver), MoMA PS1, New York (2023), The Miracle on George Green, The High Line, New York, USA (2022), a so-called archive, LUX, London, UK and THE REAL STORY IS WHAT'S IN THAT ROOM, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada (2021), and Corrections, with Aliya Pabani, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, Canada (2018).

Onyeka jointly received the 2025 Film London Jarman Award, was awarded the 2021 Foundwork Artist Prize (2021), Arts Foundation Futures Award for Experimental Short Film (2020) and was the recipient of the Berwick New Cinema Award in 2019. Her video works are screened at film festivals internationally.

Jeanette Pacher is a curator at the Vienna Secession since 2007. She is a regular lecturer in the Department of Site-Specific Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, member of the BIG ART advisory board, and from 2023 to 2025, she was jury member of KÖR – Art in Public Space Vienna.

The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast.
Programmed by the board of the Secession.

Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed
(2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard
Audio Editor: Paul Macheck
Executive Producer: Jeanette Pacher

On the occasion of the exhibition Vienna–Copenhagen. Den Frie Udstilling 2026 at the artists’ association Den Frie in Copenhagen, the co-organisers Sofie Thorsen and Henrik Plenge Jakobsen talk with the art historian and curator Vanessa Joan Müller about, among other things, the model of the artists’ association, its historical roots, and the collaborative work and lively exchange leading up to the current exhibition.

For the exhibition, the artists’ association Den Frie Udstilling invited their colleagues from the sister institution, Vienna Secession, to participate as guest exhibitors. 45 artists from Den Frie Udstilling present their work in dialogue with 125 Austrian artist colleagues from Vienna Secession. Like Den Frie, the Secession was founded in the 1890s, and the two institutions remain among the few exhibition venues in Europe still owned and run by artists. As is the case of Den Frie Udstilling, Vienna Secession also counts some of the country’s most prominent artists among its members. More

The conversation was recorded on 12 February 2026 at the Secession.

Sofie Thorsen was born in Denmark in 1971 and now lives and works in Vienna. Her mostly installation-based work is dedicated to questions of perception, space and the architectural object.

She has exhibited her work internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and has produced a number of works for public spaces, as well as publishing artist books and monographs. She is currently an associate professor at the Funen Academy of Fine Arts in Odense, DK.

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen’s (DK, 1967) artistic work is based on conceptual sculpture, installation, performance and art in public space. He works with universal themes in economics, history and politics as well as basic existential phenomena such as anxiety, alienation and coexistence. 

He is educated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Institute des Hautes Etudes en Art Plastique, and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris. He was professor at the Royal Institue of Art in Stockholm, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.

Past exhibitions include: Centre Pompidou (Paris), Den Frie (Copenhagen), Arken Museum of Contemporary Art (Ishøj), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Düsseldorf), South London Gallery (London), SMK - The National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Portikus (Frankfurt am Main), and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk, DK)

Vanessa Joan Müller, born in Hamburg (GE) in 1968, is an art historian, curator and author. From 2000 to 2005 she worked as a curator at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, from 2006 to 2011 she was Director of the Kunstverein in Düsseldorf, and from 2013 to 2020 she headed the Dramaturgy Department at Kunsthalle Wien.

Selected exhibition projects from recent years include: Stephanie Rizaj: Silent Polyglot, National Gallery of Kosova, Pristina (2026); Dorit Margreiter Choy: Passage, Cukrarna, Ljubljana (2025); Willem Oorebeek & Jieun Lim, Curated by, Vienna (2025); to display, to support, to care, Universitätsgalerie der Angewandten im Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (2024); and Unfamiliar Familiars, Leopold Museum, Vienna (2024).

Secession Podcast: Members is a series of conversations featuring members of the Secession.
The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast.
Programmed by the board of the Secession.

Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed
(2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard
Audio Editor: Paul Macheck
Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr

Künstler und Secessionsmitglied Peter Sandbichler spricht mit Angela Stief (Direktorin der Albertina Modern), die seine Arbeit seit den frühen 2000er-Jahren intensiv begleitet und mehrfach mit ihm gearbeitet hat. Im Gespräch widmen sie sich Sandbichlers skulpturaler Praxis, die sich, wie Stief formuliert, „einer eindeutigen Kategorisierung entzieht“ und zugleich von einem tiefen Interesse an Architektur und öffentlichem Raum geprägt ist.

Unter anderem spricht Sandbichler darüber, wie ihn Denken und Werk von Buckminster Fuller beeinflusst haben, sowie über sein Interesse an Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, die unmittelbare Begegnungen mit Kunst ermöglicht, große Sichtbarkeit schafft und die Chance bietet, ein sehr vielfältiges Publikum zu erreichen – verbunden mit einem Moment des Zufalls und der Unkontrollierbarkeit.

Das Gespräch wurde am 22. Jänner 2026 in der Secession aufgezeichnet.

Peter Sandbichler, geboren 1964 in Kufstein, lebt in Wien. Studium an der Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Wien bei Wander Bertoni, anschließend Bildhauerei an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien bei Bruno Gironcoli sowie Neue Medien an der Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt am Main bei Peter Weibel. 1995 Österreichischer Pavillon auf der Biennale di Venezia.

Sandbichler ist ein konzeptueller Bildhauer, der gesellschaftspolitische Themen mit grundlegenden Fragen nach der skulpturalen Ästhetik, nach Fläche, Raum und Zeit genauso wie nach Material, Form und Verfahren verknüpft. Mit unterschiedlichen Medien erzeugt er raumgreifende Objekte, Installation wie auch architektonische Interventionen im öffentlichen Raum. Dabei agiert der Künstler an der Schnittstelle von Deformation und Perfektion. Er operiert mit Strukturen, Ornamenten und Rastern, zerlegt diese und generiert neue Ordnungen.
www.petersandbichler.com

Angela Stief, geboren 1974 in Augsburg (D) ist Kunsthistorikerin, Kuratorin und Kulturpublizistin. Sie studierte Kunstgeschichte und Philosophie. Von 2002 bis 2013 war sie Kuratorin in der Kunsthalle Wien. 2020 übernahm sie die Gastprofessur für kuratorische Praxis an der Universität Linz. Seit 2020 arbeitet sie in der Albertina und wurde 2021 zur Direktorin der Albertina Modern und Chefkuratorin für Kunst der Gegenwart in der Albertina berufen. Sie verfasst zahlreiche Beiträge über Gegenwartskunst für Monografien, Kataloge und Magazine.

Ausgewählte Ausstellungen: KAWS. Art&Comix, Franz West (2026), Jenny Saville, Brigitte Kowanz (2025), Eva Beresin, The Beauty of Diversity (2024), Katharina Grosse (2023), Ways of Freedom. Jackson Pollock bis Maria Lassnig (2022), The 80s (2021), Anna Zemánková (2020), Josef Karl Rädler (2018), Leigh Bowery (2013), POWER UP – Female Pop Art (2010), Wangechi Mutu (2008).

Secession Podcast: Members ist eine Gesprächsreihe mit Mitgliedern der Secession.
Das Dorotheum ist exklusiver Sponsor des Secession Podcasts.
Programmiert vom Vorstand der Secession.

Jingle: Hui Ye mit einem Ausschnitt aus Combat of dreams für Streichquartett und Zuspielung
(2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) von Alexander J. Eberhard.
Schnitt: Paul Macheck
Produktion: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr

Listen to Reba Maybury and curator Haris Giannouras talk about her new exhibition, about punk and labour, among other things. It was recorded on 4 March 2026, a day before the opening of Reba Maybury’s exhibition I Come in Peace.

For her solo exhibition at Secession Maybury worked on a new body of work that engages directly with the misogynistic histories of the institution, confronting Klimt as a figure entrenched in privilege and power, a classical prototype of male artistic genius. In her practice the artist interrogates the intersections of feminism, sexuality, and power. Their discussion touches on the new works produced for the exhibition while addressing issues of punk, sex, labour, and the gendered side of power.

Reba Maybury is an artist, writer and dominatrix sometimes working under the name Mistress Rebecca. Her work explores the tension between her perceived strength as an object of fantasy and how through the reality of sex work she attempts to turn this power into something tangible. Much of her art practice is physically created by her submissives through her direction as a way to further the complicated imbalances of labour under sex work, gender and entitlement and an attempt to empower her further than men’s desires, leaving her with more than just a payment from them. Her first novella is named Dining with Humpty Dumpty (2017) and more recently she published Faster Than an Erection (2021 & 2024); From Paris with Love (2024); and Pervert or Detective? (with Lucy McKenzie, 2025). Themes of capital, labour, sexuality, female perversion, desire, banality, pleasure, and bureaucracy as torture and humiliation are essential to her practice.

Haris Giannouras works with artists to make exhibitions, artworks, publications and events. He is currently a curator at the Secession in Vienna. Before that he worked at MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST in Frankfurt am Main and Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. Recent projects include work with Studio for Propositional Cinema, Cana Bilir-Meier, Atelier Bow-Wow, Andrea Büttner, Jamie Crewe, Beatrice Gibson, Onyeka Igwe, Hiwa K, Ghislaine Leung, Duane Linklater, Karī Mugo, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, and the Estate of Suzan Pitt.

The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast.
Programmed by the board of the Secession.
Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed
(2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard
Audio Editor: Paul Macheck
Executive Producers: Jeanette Pacher & Bettina Spörr