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After Losing Two Fairs, Vienna’s Galleries Built One Together

Astoria Artshow, conceived by a group of 35 dealers after the city lost Vienna Contemporary and Spark Art Fair Vienna, adds new momentum to a cultural scene already rich in museums, artist-run spaces and festivals.

Among the highlights at the spacious, multistory Astoria Garage in Vienna this past September was FS 272 (1992), a mirrored sofa by the celebrated Swiss artist John M. Armleder made of furniture, reflective surfaces, lights and rotating disco balls. The work was presented at Vienna’s newest art fair, Astoria Artshow, by Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, a member of Vienna Art United, a group of 35 Viennese galleries that organized the fair. It was the first time the garage had been used for a major art event. Built in 1923 in the center of Vienna and said to be Europe’s first and largest tower garage, the space was designed for the fair by the Berlin-based architecture firm Kuehn Malvezzi, whose credits include documenta 11, the Belvedere and the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.

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The nonprofit Vienna Art United was founded in April 2026 to launch what the organizers call “a new, central, international art fair” in Vienna, following the cancellation this year of the city’s two main fairs, Vienna Contemporary and Spark Art Fair Vienna. “Gallerists in Vienna saw the urgency to act collectively and to communicate with each other to create this new art fair, [an] internationally recognizable art fair that is run by the city’s galleries,” Maximilian Thoman of Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman told Observer, adding that this year’s presentations signal ambitious plans for future editions of Astoria Artshow.

The fact that the fair is organized by the city’s own galleries “is kind of unique,” said Vienna-based sculptor and filmmaker Julia Haugeneder, adding that “everyone [was] very much looking forward to and coming together” after the announcement in July. That enthusiasm was reflected in the response from artists, collectors, gallerists and art lovers, as well as from supporting partners like the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Art, Culture, Media and Sport, the City of Vienna’s Department of Culture, the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) and the Academy........

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