The line is the foundation of art - so self-evident that it is often overlooked, and yet so diverse that it has formed the basis for ever new forms of expression for centuries. From the first sketch to radically reduced abstraction: lines structure surfaces, define spaces, separate and connect, describe reality or allow the imaginary to shine through. From September 19, 2025, the Heidi Horten Collection will dedicate the major autumn exhibition "Die Linie | The Line" to this elementary force, which will be on display until March 8, 2026.
The show sees the line as a universal creative medium that goes far beyond classical drawing. In the field of tension between spontaneous gesture and constructive rigor, it unfolds as a means of expression that not only produces forms, but also records time and movement. With works by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Egon Schiele, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly, it becomes clear how the line has reinvented itself time and again in the course of modernism.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Red Savoy, 1983 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Particular attention is paid to contemporary positions that transfer the line into space. Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, for example, creates an expansive "drawing of threads" with a site-specific installation. Her dense network makes the invisible visible: memory, grief and the fragile connection between people. Integrated into a participatory project with the visitors, Shiota's work becomes a collective network that makes it possible to experience the line as an existential link.
The fact that the Heidi Horten Collection pursues this approach is in keeping with the museum's basic attitude. The collector Heidi Goëss-Horten, who died in 2022, built up an impressive collection over decades, ranging from modern classics to important voices in contemporary art. Works by Picasso, Chagall and Matisse meet pop art icons such as Warhol and Lichtenstein or central positions in post-war and contemporary art, including Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Niki de Saint Phalle and Damien Hirst. The breadth of the collection makes it possible to draw art-historical lines - from the early avant-gardes to post-war modernism and contemporary positions. The museum in Vienna thus offers not only a profound overview of the art of the last 120 years, but also a place for a lively examination of the present and past. With the exhibition "The Line", the Heidi Horten Collection builds on this tradition and at the same time opens up new perspectives: it shows the line as a universal principle that is as elementary as it is boundless.
September 19, 2025 to March 8, 2026
The Heidi Horten Collection is pleased to announce that Verena Kaspar-Eisert, currently Chief Curator of the MuseumsQuartier Wien, will take over the artistic and scientific management of the museum on November 1, 2025.
hortencollection.com
