Hans Schabus’ works are immediately related to a spatial thinking and experience; his sculptures and interventions often refer directly to the artist’s mental and physical surroundings, especially to his atelier and the material to be processed there. The place where art is created is investigated in terms of its analogy potential with respect to life. The works can be read as a meditation on the creative act, its aspirations, but also on the difference from everyday activity. The film works that deal with traveling, speed and non-goal-oriented movement refer to the significance of an interdisciplinary reflection for art.

The exhibition project by Hans Schabus at the Secession comprises several elements that treat the possibilities arising from various perspectives of “empty space” as sculptural material. On the facade of the Secession, under the dome, the word “astronaut” is written in large glowing yellow neon letters, alluding to the unlimitedness of outer space in contrast to the enclosed space.

Inside, Schabus blocks the entrance to the exhibition space with a wall, with unplastered traces of work showing in the entrance space, whereas the other side is invisible as part of the wall of the building. The only entrance to the main room that is available to visitors is a tunnel leading through the branching cellar and side rooms of the Secession. In the main room, Schabus has built a true-to-scale model of his atelier out of cardboard and squared timbers. It is not until one leaves the windowless installation that the construction and positioning of the “atelier” become apparent to the gaze from the outside. The form of the architectonic sculpture picks up from the floor pattern of the Secession, thus penetrating into the representative space quasi from below. What concerns Schabus is not so much a display of his working situation or place of production, but rather the atelier model, as a space set into a space, mirrors the presentation context of the exhibition space. In a manner similar to a film set, the “empty” space has more potential than reality.

In the side depots of the main room, Hans Schabus additionally shows two films that involve passageways, hallways and tunnels. In Western, a video that was already highly acclaimed when it was shown at Manifest IV in Frankfurt last year, one sees Schabus in a small, self-made sailboat named “forlorn” taking a boat ride through the sewers of Vienna. The boat ride begins in the sewer area directly beneath the Secession. His seemingly endless journey through the sewers, the darkness and dirt, touches on universal questions of taking flight and not arriving. With this work, Schabus refers to Bas Jan Ader, a Dutch concept artist of the 1970s, who disappeared without a trace while crossing the Atlantic in a small boat. “Like Bas Jan Ader, I try to realize projects that are sensuous, poetic and even poignant.” At the same time, the film calls to mind the film The Third Man, the key scene of which plays in the same sewer system of Vienna.

The second video, Astronaut, shows how the artist digs a shaft in his atelier, in order to crawl through it and then run frantically through a seemingly endless, narrow tunnel, arriving finally at the preliminary end exhausted, only to start digging again. The film flows associatively into the branching sewer system of Vienna, then leads on from below through the tunnel system in the Secession and perhaps into outer space.

Hans Schabus has arranged the path through the Secession as a circuit. After the tunnel, “atelier” and main room, it finally leads down through one of the depots into the vaulted space of the gallery, ending in the cleaning room under the stairs. The interest that is implicit here is in how a narrative can be created through the course of a path. This story is continued in urban space. In cooperation with museum in progress and Infoscreen, another short film by Hans Schabus is shown in the underground stations and trains as part of the exhibition. Hans Schabus connects his atelier with the Secession via the underground train network.