Seamus Kealy

*Unterspiel* is an exhibition of five contemporary Viennese artists/artist groups, addressing a variety of artistic strategies of contemporary art production in Vienna. The exhibited works have a specific, sometimes belated, relation to a tradition of avant-gardism that has its origins in fin de siecle Vienna. At the same time these artists are paradoxically rooted in the provocative actions of the Viennese Actionists. In the wake of the Actionists' political work, contemporary Viennese art often engages in socio-political issues, whether around notions of Austrian identity, or in confrontation to political or art institutions.

Severin Hofmann & Patrick Baumiiller: This artist duo will interact with the public in their site-specific Würstelstand outside the gallery. Through performance, cultural reflection and the distribution of sausages this work experiments with notions of “cultural difference'' directly with the public.

Catrin Bolt & Marlene Haring: This former artist duo will present individual work that follows on their collaborative work, politically provocative, such as the 2003 video, *Call Boys*.

monochrom: Volunteers are invited to be buried alive. With a small, private graveyard set up in the gallery, willing individuals may come to experience their own mortality. Their project for Unterspiel is part of their Experience tour through the US and Canada.

Hans Schabus: Schabus, who represents Austria at this year's Venice Biennale, will present the video installation Western, in which the artist boats through the famous catacomb sewers beneath Vienna, the same place where Orson Wells ran from the authorities in the 1949 film *The Third Man*.

This exhibition is curated and organized by Seamus Kealy, a candidate in the Curatorial Program at UBC, and is a co-production of the Contemporary Art Gallery and the University of British Columbia.

Co-produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and the University of British Columbia

The exhibition was made possible with core support.from the Austrian Federal Chancellery Kunst Program; the Austrian Foreign Ministry and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Ottawa, and with the generous support of the Austrian Consulate in Vancouver; he Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, The University of British Columbia; The Alvin Balkind Fund; the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery; Faculty of Graduate Studies, the University of British Columbia; Red Bull; E.T.T. European Technology Transfer Inc.. 


An installation image of a piece inside the gallery. A large unsealed wood box is placed directly on the floor. The box is not sealed, and a large amount of soil fills it. A cross and shovels stick out of the soil.

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An installation image of a video projected on a wall below the staircase. The video shows an image of a person covering both sides of their head with their own hands.

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An installation image of a black camping car placed right outside the gallery. A yellow lion or dragon shape is painted on the facade of the car. 

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An installation image of several artworks in a gallery. A large unsealed wood box is placed on the floor near the far wall. A CRT TV placed on the pedestal shows the image of an assembly of people.

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An installation image of an art piece above the CAG’s entrance door. On the glass-and-metal awning above the entrance, thick, ragged plumber's hemp are mounted. Strings of hemp lined up and swinging in the air may remind a viewer of long blond hair.

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Twelve small, unframed photographs are hung in a line across the corner of two gallery walls. The photographs are of various interior, domestic-like spaces.

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An installation image of a video projected on a wall in a dimly lighted gallery. The video shows a word "western."

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An installation image of a video projected on a wall in a dimly lighted gallery. The video shows an aerial view of a sewer.

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An installation image of a circular-shaped mirror above a sink. The mirror is entirely covered with a white soap-like form. 

Seamus Kealy

Exhibitions