Opening: Tue, 02.06.2026, 7pm

Duration: Wed, 03.06. – Sat, 25.07.2026

Artists: Alice Bucknell, Chun, Zuzanna Czebatul, Andrea Ferrero, Kiki Furlan, Ndayé Kouagou, Toxic Thekla

Curators: Frederike Sperling & Pia Wamsler

As we know, algorithms have a rather flexible relationship with the truth. Whether a statement is true or false is irrelevant to them. What matters is what grabs users’ attention. So it is no coincidence that populism is thriving online. Algorithms push content that polarizes, triggers fears, questions facts, or tactically creates its own “alternative facts”– from fake news about migration to climate change denial. What counts is the effect. And that effect must be one thing above all else: engaging.

For a better understanding of this metamorphosis of communication into spectacle, it is worth taking a look at the world of professional wrestling. In her book Ringmaster (2023) about the notorious American wrestling tycoon Vince McMahon, journalist Abraham Josephine Riesman describes the show fight spectacle as a fabrication machine of synthetic realities. In wrestling, Riesman argues, the boundaries between reality and fiction are systematically blurred. The consequence: viewers learn to bend their minds to the twists and turns of the spectacle, accepting first one thing and then another as reality, regardless of logic or reason. Reality as a matter of mindset – a logic that also underlies the digital realities that flood our news feeds every day. As in wrestling, the rule goes: What you like is what’s true. Attitude is everything. 

Politics and show fights, fact and fiction, manipulation and dissociation – the group exhibition Attitude Era, co-curated by Frederike Sperling and Pia Wamsler, navigates precisely along these coordinates. Seven artistic positions explore the relationship between reality and fiction in the age of slopaganda, deepfakes and Trumpism. 

Pia Wamsler is an art historian, curator, and cultural worker whose practice focuses on sound, performance, and video art. After completing her studies in art history in Regensburg, she worked at institutions such as Kunsthalle Wien, with Johanna Bruckner, and on a range of exhibition projects. Since 2020, she is part of DAS WEISSE HAUS, where she serves as a curator and exhibition manager, and was also as a curator and project coordinator for the international platform Videocity until 2025. Since 2024, she has been a board member of SALOON Vienna and the SALOON Network.