The Leopold Museum in Vienna is taking visitors on a journey into the supernatural with its groundbreaking new exhibition "Hidden Modernity: Fascination with the Occult around 1900." Opening tomorrow and running through January 18, 2026, this comprehensive show provides the first major overview of an era marked by the search for alternative ways of life and fascination with the mystical.
The rapid acceleration of daily life through industrialization around 1900 led to strong reactions from artists who sought radical change. This period witnessed the emergence of naturism, vegetarianism, and women's movements, alongside a growing interest in spiritualism and theosophical teachings. The exhibition features approximately 180 works by about 85 artists spanning from the 1860s to the 1930s, offering a glimpse into a previously hidden aspect of occult modernism.
Composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche serve as the guiding figures of this era, though as curator Ivan Ristić explains, "They themselves were not occultists, but they provided occultists with a great deal of material." The exhibition showcases how these intellectual giants influenced a generation of artists who turned to mysticism and alternative spirituality as responses to modern industrial society.
One of the exhibition's highlights is "The Power of Love" by painter and wandering poet Gusto Gräser (1898/99), who lived in Vienna with his commune, dressed in long robes and sandals. Ristić describes the work as depicting "an infernal scenery with environmental pollution, industrial smokestacks, murder, manslaughter, suicide, and pure despair. And then the transition from this into a new life, into a promised paradise."
The exhibition features masterworks from renowned artists including Edvard Munch's "Melancholy," Oskar Kokoschka's "Veronica with the Sudarium," Wassily Kandinsky's "Landscape with Church," and Egon Schiele's "The Seer." Additional works include pieces by Hugo Höppener (known as Fidus) with his "Light Prayer" and "Studies for Lucifer," Max Oppenheimer, Albert von Keller's "Spiritualist Apport of a Bracelet," and Gertraud Reinberger-Brausewetter.
Beyond paintings, the exhibition displays fascinating sculptures and period objects that illuminate the era's alternative lifestyle movements. Notable among these is the "Zander apparatus," invented around 1895 for therapeutic gymnastics and representing an early precursor to modern fitness equipment. As Ristić explains, "'Zandering' meant nothing other than doing fitness, named after Swedish physician Gustav Zander. Such equipment could be found in sanatoriums or in first-class sections of steamships."
The exhibition also features eerie photography, including Adolf Jost's "Ghost Apparition" from before 1864, which exemplifies the period's fascination with supernatural phenomena and spirit photography. These works demonstrate how artists and photographers attempted to capture and document what they believed to be evidence of the supernatural world.
Curator Ristić draws compelling parallels between the occult movements of the early 1900s and contemporary alternative movements. He notes that bringing together themes of occultism and life reform was an obvious choice, particularly given that co-curator Matthias Dusini conceived the idea in 2020. "I don't know if it's a coincidence that he came up with the idea in 2020, at the time when all the anti-Corona demonstrations started, where esoteric anti-vaxxers marched together with neo-Nazis. All of this has its roots in that era," Ristić concludes, highlighting the enduring relevance of these historical movements to contemporary society.
