The catalogue was published on occasion of the exhibition «The Death of the Audience. Ver Sacrum», which took place at the Secession in Vienna in 2009 and which challenged the visitors to emancipate themselves from their traditional roles as spectators. This extraordinary and very successful exhibition - curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc, director of the Centre d'Art Contemporain (CAC) in Brétigny - showed works of artists active between 1960 and 1980 and received a lot of attention and feedback from visitors as well as experts and the media. It was named one of the ten best exhibitions of the year by artforum and Frieze. Building up on the tone of the exhibition, the book is not intended as a classical catalogue, but as a source and inspiration for further research and analysis. Previously unpublished texts take different perspectives on the questions the exhibition posed and offer new insights into its topics. Numerous unpublished reproductions of art works are shown and contextualized with the help of images from the exhibition space. The book is furthermore a reference to the magazine 'Ver Sacrum' (published by Gustav Klimt for the Secession) - its format and concept were taken up and interpreted by the graphic designers VIER5.