At Night the Backdrops Dream of Unseen Images

Plaster casts from the Glyptothek of the Art Collections of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna: Hera, Heracles, Homer, Medusa and Septimius Severus

In the Prospekthof, a former scenery storage facility, Alexander Kluge stages an exhibition that, following the idea of a theatrical performance, employs video stations as actors and offers a transhistorical stage space for multiperspective movements of thought with numerous collaborations, at the center of which stands the work Sphinx Opera by Katharina Grosse, created in collaboration with Alexander Kluge.

In a "torn world," we need the space of possibility, the "subjunctive of images," Alexander Kluge believes. The exhibition explores Pegasus, the heraldic animal of poetics, born from the blood of Medusa's severed head; Fortuna, "the weathervane of fortune"; Homer's account of burned Troy; and the rapid metamorphosis of power that we witness today with contemporary Caesars. The Viennese theater of plebeian public life acts as a consoling tone. Its theme is "death and cheerfulness." It is never about just one of the two.

Parallel to the exhibition, a major retrospective of Alexander Kluge's cinematic work will take place at the Austrian Film Museum from 22.1.–25.2.2026. 
> Link to the Program of the Filmmuseum

Scenography: Lina Eberle
Curated by Ingeborg Erhart
Production: Sofie Mathoi
Kluge Team: Barbara Barnak, Leonard Kluge, Cristian Stampfl

A Cooperation with the Filmmuseum Wien.