kex—open call
The majority of the exhibition programme of kex— is decided each year by an advisory board following a public call for proposals. For the 2025 program, the following advisory board members made the selection in collaboration with the kex—team: Anne Faucheret, Julia Haugeneder, Georgia Holz, Dejan Kaludjerović, Klaus Schafler.
The kex—open call will be announced on this website in the end of January 2026. Deadlines will be published via newsletter and socials.
The submission guidelines are very open: inter(national) group exhibitions can be submitted. However, solo exhibitions and projects by or with students only will not be considered. Submissions may be made in German or English.
ADVISORY BOARD:
Thomas Geiger
Thomas Geiger (1983, based in Vienna) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe and the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. His work develops performative situations that interrelate different times, places, and subjects—often at the intersections of institutional and public spaces. These works give rise to surprising and tension-filled encounters: he talks to statues (Bust Talks, ongoing since 2018), guides audiences through the subconscious of institutions (Being Kunsthalle Wien, 2023), or embarks on time travels into the future of the past (25 Jahre zu spät, 2025).
In recent years, he has realized projects with institutions such as Salzburger Kunstverein, Kunstverein Hannover, Capc Bordeaux, Belvedere Wien, Kunsthalle Wien, Kunstverein Siegen, CAC Brétigny, Wiener Festwochen, and steirischer herbst.
Alongside his artistic practice, Thomas Geiger is the co-founder of Mark Pezinger Books, which he has co-directed with designer Astrid Seme since 2010. The internationally active publishing house serves as a platform for artistic publishing projects and experimental forms of publishing.
twgeiger.de
markpenzinger.de
2026 - 2028
Barbara Mahlknecht
Barbara Mahlknecht works at the intersection of art, research, and education, with a particular interest in the entanglements of socially and politically engaged research and curatorial practice. Her work addresses questions of feminist struggle, care and social reproduction, critical pedagogy, the archive, and the politics of memory. As a researcher, curator, educator, and art mediator, she develops collaborative formats that foster collective knowledge and political agency. She regularly publishes and lectures on these topics in academic, artistic, and activist contexts.
She has recently worked as a Senior Scientist at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2020–2022) and as a lecturer at the Piet Zwart Institute / Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam (2017–2019). Her recent projects include the exhibition Ho altro da fare (FLUCC, Vienna, 2024), the international symposium Reviving Feminist Struggles, Growing New Worlds (SOAS, Feminist Library and Mayday Rooms, London, 2024), the socially engaged art project Mothering Communities (University of Applied Arts Vienna, 2023), and the event series The Struggle is Not Over (Museum of the 20th Century, Mestre, 2023). She was also associate curator and co-editor of the exhibition and publication Hungry for Time by Raqs Media Collective at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2021–2022). She is currently pursuing a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, supported by an AHRC Fellowship.
Klara Paterok
Klara Paterok (*1983 in Emmerich) studied fine art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Her interest in the composition and dissolution of patterns and structures, in aesthetics and materiality forms the basis for the balancing of opposites such as nature and culture, the organic and the artificial or functionality and randomness. (Veronika Floch, 2022) Klara Paterok lives and works in Düsseldorf and Vienna. Her recently realized exhibitions and projects include: SilvrettAtelier, Montafon, 2024; Listening to the Sun, art book, 2024; Soft Roofscapes, New Delhi, 2023/24; GUARDS, Kiralık Depo, Istanbul, 2023; Festival der Regionen, Steyregg, 2023; DIE GROSSE, NRW-Forum/Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, 2023; 76. Internationale Bergische Kunstausstellung, Kunstmuseum Solingen, Solingen, 2022. Numerous artist-in-residencies have taken her to Seoul, Detroit, New Delhi and Glasgow, among other places. Collaboration with the artist-run space Kulturdrogerie, Vienna (since 2005) and the Düsseldorf artists' collective Mother Of Pearl (since 2013) is an important part of her artistic practice. Klara Paterok lives and works in Düsseldorf and Vienna.
klarapaterok.de
florapondtemporary.at
motherofpearl-collective.com
Klaus Schafler
Artist and project maker Klaus Schafler was appointed the new director of kunsthalle exnergasse in autumn 2022, where he aims to advance its programmes and discourses with a new team. Following studies in art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and economics at the University of Graz and the Facolta di Scienze Politiche Messina, Schafler was a fellow at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, a visiting critic at ART OMI, and co-initiated the collaborative project Grammar of Urgencies, which currently conducts research on “Fleeting Territories”.
In his performative installations and staged lectures, he addresses the fragile balance between micro-aspects and the “world” as relational concepts, which are often projected onto a future that is already taking shape. His work has been shown at Kunsthaus Graz, nGbK, Berlin, JAUS Gallery, Los Angeles, K.U.L.M., Maldives Pavilion – 55th Venice Biennale, and Regionale12, Murau.
seit 2022
Nicole Suzuki
Nicole Suzuki is part of the curatorial department at Kunsthalle Wien, where she heads the publishing division. In 2009, she founded the publishing house Zaglossus, which she directed until 2021, and where she was particularly responsible for academic editing and translations. She holds a PhD in political science and is a PhD-in-Practice candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.