informational 5 min read
Albertina Exhibitions: What Is On and How It Works
Updated September 18, 2026
The Albertina’s temporary exhibitions are the reason most people go, and the reason a recommendation from two years ago is worthless. The programme turns over several times a year; the building does not.
This page explains how the programme works and where to check it. It deliberately does not pretend to tell you what is hanging on the day you read it.
One ticket, everything inside
The useful structural fact: the Albertina does not sell separate exhibition tickets. Admission is EUR 20.90 for an adult, EUR 17.50 for seniors over 65 and visitors under 26, and free for anyone under 19, and that single ticket covers the state rooms, the permanent collection and whatever temporary shows are running.
That matters when you compare it with museums that charge a base admission and then add eight or ten euros for the headline show. At the Albertina the headline show is the admission.
What the programme looks like
Two or three major exhibitions run at once, usually a mix of a historic name and something contemporary, and they change on staggered schedules rather than all at once. When we read the museum’s own site on 18 September 2026, the shows it was promoting included KAWS, Victor Vasarely, Marc Adrian, Picasso and Bacon.
We are dating that sentence rather than presenting it as current, because it will not be true for long. Treat it as an illustration of the range, not a listing.
The permanent strengths behind the programme are consistent: the Albertina’s reputation was built on works on paper — the graphic collection includes the Dürer holdings that most people come to Vienna hoping to see — and on the modern painting collections it acquired in the 2000s.
The Dürer problem
Worth setting expectations on, because it generates a steady stream of disappointed visitors. Works on paper cannot be permanently displayed: light damages them, and the Albertina’s most famous holdings — Dürer’s Young Hare among them — spend most of their lives in storage for conservation reasons.
They are shown periodically, in rotation and in dedicated exhibitions. If a specific drawing is the reason you are going, check that it is actually on display before you buy a ticket. A high-quality facsimile is often on show instead, and it is labelled as one.
When to go
Two evenings a week the museum stays open until 21:00, on Wednesdays and Fridays, against a 10:00 to 18:00 close on every other day. Those late hours are the quietest in the building, and for a busy temporary exhibition they are worth planning around — an eight o’clock arrival on a Friday puts you in a show that had a queue at two.
Where to check
The museum’s own site publishes the current programme with dates, and it is the only source worth trusting for what is on. Aggregator listings and older travel guides lag by months.
Two things to look for when you check: the closing date of the show you want, which is often sooner than you expect, and whether the state rooms are open, since they occasionally close for events.
A note on the other building
Albertina Modern, at Karlsplatz, runs its own separate exhibition programme and its own EUR 17.90 ticket. Searches for “Albertina exhibitions” return both, and the two are often confused. If a show you have read about is contemporary, check which building it is in before you set off — they are about fifteen minutes apart.