Vienna Contemporary Opens with Focus on Painting and Eastern Europe

Vienna Contemporary art fair opened on September 22, 2016, at the Marx Halle, a 19th-century post-industrial building in Vienna. The fair features galleries from 28 countries, predominantly European, including Moscow, London, Beijing, New York, Seoul, and Dubai. The dominant trend is chromatic painting, exemplified by a recent abstract work by Herbert Brandl, who represented Austria at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Italian curator Daniele Capra noted strong attendance and an orderly fair with interesting perspectives from Eastern Europe rather than the North, with much painting and attention to geometric abstraction. The fair runs through September 25, 2016, and has already announced its 2017 edition from September 21 to 24.