curated by Jean-Rodolphe Petter, with Oriane Emery

Fugitive Love has the immediate quality of a refrain: two familiar, almost pop-cultural words whose connection nonetheless throws off balance the promise they initially seem to make. Love is commonly understood as something we hold onto, that we want to protect, name, or make permanent. The fugitive, on the other hand, designates something that exists only for a moment, escapes grasp, is on the run, but also something that refuses to submit to the existing order. The combination of these words therefore does not simply describe a love that has disappeared. Rather, it points to a relationship that must sometimes move, become opaque, or change its form in order to persist. The exhibition approaches love beyond the romantic couple while retaining its full force of desire, lust, dependency, vulnerability, grief, and contradiction. Across bodies, images, clothing, places, and narratives, love unsettles any notion that it has a singular location. It connects partners, beloved people, strangers, temporary communities, and the absent. What makes love fugitive is not necessarily its brevity, but its refusal to assume those forms through which a relationship is supposed to become visible, understandable, and legitimate. Making a relationship visible, nameable, and recognizable does not necessarily emancipate it, and not everything that remains opaque is absent. Certain bonds persist precisely because they escape possession, classification, administration, or their immediate conversion into consumable images. Where duration and recognition are denied to them, flight becomes a method: a way of preserving what can only survive by remaining in motion. Fugitive Love brings together historical, established, and rece

curated by Jean-Rodolphe Petter, with Oriane Emery takes place on 17 October 2026 at Galerie Sophie Tappeiner.

17 October 2026

Galerie Sophie Tappeiner · An der Hülben 3, 1010 Wien

This event is in the Innere Stadt (Wien) neighbourhood (1st district) – known as imperial, grand, bustling.

Nearest public transport stop: Riemergasse (3A), ~100 m.

Sights nearby: Wiener Stadtpark, Museum für angewandte Kunst (Wien), Kursalon Hübner.

More Arts & Culture in Vienna →

See the map with all events in Vienna →