5 September – 2 November 2025

Together with the Werner Trenker Collection, the city of Wiener Neustadt dedicated an exhibition to the painterly oeuvre of Markus Prachensky, one of the most significant representatives of Austrian Informel. At the heart of the show was the colour that the artist himself called the colour of his life: a flaming red that became the gateway into his abstract-expressionist visual world.

Prachensky - Ein Malerleben in Rot

Markus Prachensky – A Painter's Life in Red, Museum St. Peter an der Sperr, Wiener Neustadt. Curated by Barbara Steininger-Wetzlmair and Florian Steininger. Together with the Werner Trenker Collection, the city of Wiener Neustadt dedicated an exhibition to the painterly oeuvre of Markus Prachensky (1932–2011), one of the most significant representatives of Austrian Informel. At the heart of the show was the colour that the artist himself called the colour of his life: a flaming red that became the gateway into his abstract-expressionist visual world.

Against the sacred backdrop of the former monastery St. Peter an der Sperr, the exhibition traced an arc from early constructive works of the 1950s, through the powerful series Rouge sur Noire and the lyrical scripturality of the 1960s, to large-format works from the Senatus Consultum cycle of 2005, which achieved monumental impact in the apse of the church. With works such as Battaglia di San Romano, the exhibition also revealed Prachensky's deliberate engagement with European art history. The works on display came from the private collections of Werner Trenker and Brigitte Prachensky. With this presentation, Wiener Neustadt built on its successful shows dedicated to Ernst Fuchs, Hermann Nitsch, and Paul Rotterdam, confirming its reputation as the art capital of Lower Austria.