The poster for the 2026 Viennale features a whale, more precisely a North Pacific right whale from Naki Josuiken's 1794 book "Geishi" ("On Whales"). The ambivalent image opens up "a vast space for imagination" and creates a kind of "expanded reality," said Eva Sangiorgi at the traditional summer press conference in the Volksgarten Pavilion. At its heart is the idea of the monster—not as a threat, "but as a cautionary gaze that returns ours."
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The poster for the 2026 Viennale features a whale, more precisely a North Pacific right whale from Naki Josuiken's 1794 book "Geishi" ("On Whales"). The ambivalent image opens up "a vast space for imagination" and creates a kind of "expanded reality," said Eva Sangiorgi at the traditional summer press conference in the Volksgarten Pavilion. At its heart is the idea of the monster—not as a threat, "but as a cautionary gaze that returns ours."