Members: Hans Schabus im Gespräch mit Kathrin Rhomberg

<p><em>In German</em></p> <p>The artist Hans Schabus, who has exhibited twice at the Secession and served on its board, and the long-standing curator Kathrin Rhomberg discuss the Secession as a point of reference for their own work, the significance of the confrontational, provocative energy of art as a site of action, and the exhibition venue as a place that enables the immediate experience of this force.</p> <p>They also speak about Schabus’s 1996 exhibition in the Graphic Cabinet, which he extended into the Ver Sacrum Room below and—by boarding up the windows of both rooms on the façade—connected visibly to the outside, as well as his now legendary exhibition <em>Astronaut (Komme gleich)</em>, in which he bricked up the entrance to the main hall in 2003.</p> <p>His intensive engagement at that time with the underground as an embodiment of an inverted utopia not only led to breaking with the representational idea of what is referred to as the first White Cube by making it disappear. It also resulted in several short films, including <em>Western</em>, which he shot in 2002 in Vienna’s sewer system, and <em>Astronaut</em> (2003), filmed within the tunnel system he constructed in the Secession.</p> <p>The conversation was recorded on 28 January 2026 at the Secession.</p>