20.10.2026 – 03.12.2026
Jonas Höschl’s solo exhibition *Polizeipferde für Österreich* (Police Horses for Austria) presents a documentation of his performative intervention of the same name, which took place as part of the opening of the Vienna art fair Parallel Vienna 2026. The work takes as its starting point the plans to introduce a mounted police unit in Vienna, which the Austrian Ministry of the Interior was preparing politically between early 2018 and late 2019. Horses were purchased, and a trial run and training programme were launched. The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, donated two black horses to the Austrian state for this purpose. The project was the subject of heated public debate and was criticised by numerous parties – the opposition, the police union and animal welfare organisations. In April 2019, the mounted police were out on patrol in Vienna’s city centre for the first time to train under real-world conditions. After costing around 2.5 million euros, the project was shelved in the wake of the Ibiza affair and the subsequent snap elections at the end of 2019. By re-enacting a real, yet failed, operation – featuring two performers in authentic police uniforms on horseback – the piece explores the discrepancy between political symbolism and reality. Jonas Höschl’s *Police Horses for Austria* physically recreates a measure that has been lost to history – one that most Austrians know only from media debate – whilst simultaneously stripping it of any functional effectiveness. This raises questions about the aesthetics and mechanisms of authoritarian politics.
JONAS HÖSCHL | Police Horses for Austria
20.10.2026 – 03.12.2026
Bildraum 01
Strauchgasse 2
1010 Vienna
www.bildrecht.at
