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"THE
SHAFT OF BABEL"
Opening: 2/26/2003, 6 p.m.
Duration of exhibition: 2/27/2003 - 3/29/2003
Parallel opening of the one-man exhibition Hans Schabus "Astronaut (I'll
be right there)" at the Secession, Vienna, 2/26/2003, 7 p.m.
Press release
(Below the top layer) >Hans Schabus is in the tunnel < said a voice on
the other end of the receiver. For weeks it's always been the same answer.
People assumed that the artist was on to something hot or was at least
on some hot trail. In any case, since he went under Schabus had not made
sent any news, and people began wondering whether it wouldn't make more
sense to simply send some information back into the shaft while it was
till possible. People were wondering how to understand the artist's silence
without having to ask him about it. It seemed as if the only option left
was to close the hole into which he had vanished with the earth he had
used to fill bags with in a orderly way - to close it so that no one,
apart from him and the few initiated who had to be there when the hole
was being repaired, could recognized the hole anymore.
(The paper-like eye) Meanwhile tons of earth have accumulated up on top
of the dark hole, equally distributed in red bags entirely covering the
former studio with undulating plastic. Hanging on the walls, over the
bags, were some plans with thinly drawn sketches, like those used for
the construction of buildings. These plans showed street-like lines that
passed through the inside of the buildings like a thick string of nerves.
Presumedly, they are supposed to mark the path that Schabus followed.
On one of the large sheets of paper one could recognize the outlines and
the ground plan of the Secession - but instead of a street the Wiener
Kanal flowed by the entrance to the building. And did one actually reach
the main room of this building by way of a wide, labyrinthine underground
path? A narrow dark shaft of tunnel which the artist apparently found
in a finished state and only had to photograph, had been pasted around
a wooden spiral staircase, on a different sheet of paper depicting different
views.
(A fall as light as a feather). It seemed as if the sketches and collages
were leading their own, non-transferable existence which had been delineated
by the format of paper used by the artist to arrange his thoughts while
making preparations for his journey. As if not he, but the journey had
packed his bags and as if not the plan but rather a loose board on the
floor of his studio had marked the beginning of his journey.
(Above the lower level) Meanwhile, on the upper floor of this studio located
in the center of Vienna, one was studying the irregularly sieved fabric
of the sky.
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