6. Hans Schabus (Watschig, Austria, 1970)
Monument to People in Movement, 2024
Alluminio pressofuso, legno
Die-cast aluminium, wood
100 x 35 x 41 cm
Courtesy: l’artista

7. Hans Schabus (Watschig, Austria, 1970)
Icarus (Graphite Black), 2017
Alluminio pressofuso
Die-cast aluminium
32 x 39 x 31 cm
Courtesy: l’artista

14. Hans Schabus (Watschig, Austria, 1970)
Echo, 2009
Video a colori, suono. 3’45’’
Color video, sound. 3’45’’
Courtesy: Museo Palazzo Milio
La Stanza della Seta Ficarra

Hans Schabus (Watschig, Austria, 1970) is often compared to an astronaut—projected toward the unknown, drawn to uncharted territories that are pure and intense, in a constant search for meaning. His works—sculptures, videos, and performances—are sensitive instruments that probe the world in pursuit of the fundamental values that underpin the everyday struggle of life.
He approaches this quest with an apparently detached, almost cynical gaze—one that conceals a deep lyrical dimension and an experience of the world lived firsthand, with the urgency and wonder of someone in search of the essence of things.
Schabus’s work often originates from lived experiences that, once filtered through the imagination, take shape as suggestions, impossible associations, and visions born of a restless soul. His creative process explores the tension between construction and decay, transformation and resistance, individuality and system.
The three selected works express different approaches to a shared theme: the processes of transformation—political, economic, and social—that act upon individuals across the globe, either voluntarily or passively, and which globalization, increasingly inattentive to local specificities, only accelerates. These processes unfold within a complex web of interconnected interests and crises, generating a constant state of becoming—marked by fractures, adaptations, and acts of resistance.
From this condition emerges movement: flows of people migrating in search of change, fleeing war, famine, disease, instability—or the asphyxiation of a Western society in crisis, numbed by systemic power. In all cases, individuals are in motion, driven by the urgent need to seek freedom, culture, and a future.

6. Monument to People in Movement (2024)
Inspired by Constantin Brâncuși’s Endless Column, Monument to People in Movement is a tribute to those who continue to seek, who move forward without certainties, driven by the hope for a light that might bring meaning to existence. It is a hymn to the courage required to face change without abandoning the possibility of authentic transformation.

7. Icarus (Graphite Black) (2017)
This cast aluminum sculpture explores the tension between form and disintegration. The garments represented are partially scorched in the casting process itself, suspended between destruction and preservation—between what endures and what is consumed. The exposed casting channels lend the piece structural strength while simultaneously revealing its intrinsic fragility. Rigidity and movement coexist, like a coagulated instant in time—expressing action rather than stillness.

14. Echo (2009)
In just under three minutes, Echo suspends the viewer in near-unbearable anticipation, culminating in a brief burst of action. A pristine natural landscape is suddenly violated—a visual echo of panic and change. Is it a flight? From whom, or from what? A fugitive? The artist? Nature itself? Or perhaps a symbol of inevitable transformation?