Reviving the Wild, Reinventing the Abstract: Austrian Abstraction in 2025
- Max Kulich
- Oct 8
- 1 min read
Austria’s abstract painting scene in 2025 is alive with bold gestures, material experimentation, and renewed dialogue with its post war heritage. From museum retrospectives to young artists studio shows, abstraction is being reimagined with both historical awareness and contemporary urgency.
At Forum Frohner’s “Wild Painting – Frohner & Neo Expressionism” in Krems, the legacy of Adolf Frohner and the “Neue Wilde” movement inspires a new generation of painters who see freedom and raw emotion as critical artistic tools. Meanwhile, the Neue Galerie Graz revisits Wolfgang Hollegha, one of Austria’s great abstract expressionists, reminding audiences of the deep local roots of gestural abstraction.
Vienna’s Albertina Modern bridges past and present in Remix: From Gerhard Richter to Katharina Grosse, showing how Austrian artists converse with European abstraction at large. At the same time, Max Freund’s exhibition at Collectors Agenda introduces tactile, collage based works that blur abstraction and figuration; a hallmark of current Austrian painting.
Across studios and galleries, three themes stand out:
a revival of expressive, gestural “Wild” painting,
hybrid forms that merge abstraction with narrative hints,
and a deep fascination with materiality and surface — paint as substance, not illusion.
From the textured canvases of Graz to Vienna’s minimalist experiments, Austrian abstraction in 2025 stands as a bridge between instinct and intellect, proof that the language of paint remains endlessly new.
