The MAK Vienna is presenting the first comprehensive exhibition on the work of fashion designer Helmut Lang from December 10, 2025 to May 3, 2026. Under the title “Helmut Lang. Séance de Travail 1986–2005”, the museum shows central positions from the designer’s largest and only public archive, which Lang himself gave to the house in 2011. The show offers an in-depth look at Lang’s working method, his radical design approach and his cross-media approach, which reconnected fashion, architecture, art and communication.
The focus is on Lang’s performative presentation form Séance de Travail, his cross-gender silhouettes and his early engagement with digital media. Historically significant milestones such as the first fashion show streamed online in 1998/99, the iconic Taxi Top campaigns in New York (advertising signs on the roofs of taxis) and the collaboration with artists such as Jenny Holzer and Louise Bourgeois mark Lang’s role as a pioneer of a media-conscious fashion aesthetic.
The exhibition reconstructs central elements of the Helmut Lang flagship stores and presents fully digitalized video documentation of the séance shows for the first time. This is complemented by original runway ensembles, prototypes, backstage material, campaigns and archive objects that make Lang’s concept of a holistic, interdisciplinary brand universe visible.
The MAK Helmut Lang Archive is the largest and only official public archive of his work. With more than 10,000 data sets, it includes objects and documents that trace the development of the label, founded in Vienna in 1986 by Helmut Lang, until its exit in 2005. “The MAK Archive is intended as a ‘living archive’. I hope it inspires others to have the courage to find their own voice. The past is never easier than the present; the present is always the possibility,” explains Helmut Lang.
