Single-channel video installation, color, sound
10 min 57 sec


In this video Hans Schabus is seen gliding through the sewer system of Vienna in a sailboat he built himself and christened 'forlorn'. His seemingly endless journey through the sewers, the darkness, and the garbage touches on universal questions of escape and non-arrival. Asked how Western came about, Schabus explains:
"I had been invited to a gallery show in New York and started contemplating how to get there and what I was supposed to do there. The thought of traveling to the United States soon evoked the topic of emigration, Ellis Island, the skyline, and all that…. I’ll build a boat and sail there. It was supposed to be an “Optimist”, the most widely produced sailboat in the world. It was designed in the States in the 1950s and its name alone already suggests a signal for change. For my project, of course, the Optimist had to be converted into a “Pessimist”. Therefore, the boat is foldable, has wheels, lights, and several other security measures. I wanted to escape the city without being seen, leaving the shit, the historical burden behind me, heading for the New World. And all that on the back of the dealer and con man in post-war Vienna. Western is an allusion to the "The Third Man" – the sound-hole of the zither, the oval, the record player, the Vienna River sewage tunnel. But there is a photograph that localizes me. I’m in a sailboat on the East River in front Manhattan’s foggy skyline. It was a cold, rainy day in March, and it quickly became clear: This is not the promised land.” – Hans Schabus in an interview for the TBA21 Collection Book

PAST LOANS

Exhibition: Social Lubricant & Water Politics
Institution: XXArt Flanerie / Festival “May you live in liquid times”, Vienna
Venue: Hollerei Gallery, Vienna
Curator: Georgij Melnikov
Exhibition Dates: July 2 - July 10, 2021

Hans Schabus (born January 25, 1970 in Watschig, municipality of Hermagor-Pressegger in Carinthia) is an Austrian contemporary artist. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Vienna with Bruno Gironcoli. He became famous for the design of the Austrian Pavilion at the 40th Venice Biennale in 2005. Schabus lives in Vienna.

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.