HELMUT LANG. SÉANCE DE TRAVAIL 1986–2005 / Excerpts from the MAK Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Helmut Lang Archive is the first exhibition dedicated to Helmut Lang’s work from 1986 to 2005. Drawing entirely on the MAK Helmut Lang Archive, part of the museum’s collection since 2011; the exhibition offers an in-depth exploration of Lang’s multidisciplinary practice, which connected fashion with art, architecture, urban space, and media within a broader cultural and global context.

“The MAK archive is meant to be 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 opportunity.” Helmut Lang said.

Conceived as a moment rather than a retrospective, the exhibition foregrounds working processes over finished products. Large-scale, site-specific installations and previously unseen archival materials provide insight into Lang’s ways of thinking and making, emphasising process, concept, and complexity. Archival evidence is activated spatially and sensorially, allowing visitors to experience how ideas, materials, and images evolve.

The exhibition resists chronological or typological display in favour of overlapping thematic constellations. This approach reveals Lang’s work as interdisciplinary, iterative, and politically grounded. It truly situates his practice within contemporary discourse. By reconnecting garments, images, and documents with the conditions that shaped them, the exhibition presents Lang’s oeuvre as a method; one that questions traditional hierarchies, challenges established modes of representation, and positions fashion as a cultural and intellectual field rather than a consumable style.

Together, the exhibition and its documentation underscore the enduring relevance of Helmut Lang’s image-making and their continued resonance in debates around authenticity and self-empowerment.

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