Psychiatry, the 1980s, Art Brut and female artists: 2026 cultural highlights in Lower Austria

Lower Austria’s 2026 cultural year gets off to a dynamic start, featuring standout program highlights. Major exhibitions but also festivals, concerts and theaters will shape the year, providing for tour operators, travel agencies and individual travelers an alternative to Austria top -and often overcrowded- destinations in spring and summer such as Salzburg or Vienna.

Lower Austria is the largest province in Austria, covering one quarter of the total area of the country. It surrounds Vienna and stretches westwards along the Danube River up to the Alps. Its most famous region is the Wachau – Danube Valley with its sloping vineyards,  magnificent abbeys, stately palaces and historical cities.

The cultural year 2026 will celebrate many anniversaries. A central reference point of the cultural year is the Lower Austrian Provincial Exhibition 2026 (NÖLA), running from March 28 to November 8, 2026.

A cultural year around psychiatry and mental health

It will take place in the most unusual venue. For the first time, a hospital will indeed welcome the cultural exhibition in the city of Amstetten. The Mauer State Hospital as the exhibition venue has stood for 120 years as a symbol of the treatment of mental illness in Lower Austria, the thematic focus of NÖLA 2026. With its exceptional Art Nouveau architecture and unique history, the exhibition at the state hospital takes society’s approach to mental health as its point of departure. It will also remind the role played by psychiatry in the Austrian society in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Complementing the psychiatry thematic, the Museum Gugging celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026. The museum has one of the most comprehensive presentations of Art Brut. Gugging is a former neurological hospital turned into a place for talented patients to live and work. The “Center for Art-Psychotherapy” with Gugging artist Johann Hauser became over time a full-fledged artists home, before becoming a museum dedicated to the artists in 2006.

In 2026, Schallaburg Castle invites visitors on a journey back to the 1980s. One of Lower Austria’s top excursion destinations presents the exhibition “The ’80s – Borders Were Yesterday” from April 11 to November 15, 2026, focusing on a decade full of contrasts, upheaval, and inspiration. Neon colors and pop culture shaped life in the 1980s just as much as political tensions, social crises and finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 2026, the “Kunstmeile” (“ArtsTrail”) in Krems will present 21 new exhibitions across its five central museums, including anniversary shows and Austrian premieres. A key focus is placed on female artistic positions, such as Inge Dick and Soli Kiani at Kunsthalle Krems or “Rebel in a Traditional Skirt” at the Landesgalerie Niederösterreich.

As Austria’s only museum dedicated to satirical art, the Caricature Museum Krems has been a major audience draw for the last 25 years. This anniversary will see the celebration of Austrian artist Gerhard Haderer, with an exhibition from July 18 onward showing his oil paintings for the first time, complemented by new cartoons and works from his controversial volume The Life of Jesus.

Festivals and a new concert hall

Castle Grafenegg celebrates the opening of the Rudolf Buchbinder Hall in 2026, along with the 20th anniversary of the Grafenegg Festival. As early as May 2026, the new concert hall—under construction in the former riding school and offering around 500 seats—will combines historic substance with state-of-the-art acoustics and infrastructure. The venue will play a particularly significant role in shaping the Grafenegg Festival, which will take place for the 20th time from August 14 to September 6, 2026.

Since 1994, the Theaterfest Niederösterreich has delighted audiences with spoken theater, opera, operetta, and musical productions across 20 venues. It includes the Reichenau Festival, the “Hin & Weg” Theater Festival, and the Blindenmarkt Autumn Days. Participating venues include productions by Bühne Baden, the Berndorf Festival, Operklosterneuburg, the Melk Summer Games, Festival Retz, the Schloss Sitzenberg Summer Games, the Staatz Rock Stage, and many others.

All these events are an opportunity to explore Lower Austria exceptional landscapes as well as its historical cities. From Sankt-Pölten, the regional capital to spa town Baden bei Wien, from historical cities Krems to Tulln, from Schallenburg castle to the powerful Melk abbey, Lower Austria is indeed a perfect tourism alternative.