The Art Partners' highlights from the Art Basel 2016
As the intense art-focused week in Basel has come to an end, we decided to select our highlights and create a list of artworks from fairs and museum shows that caught our attention.
Installation view of works by Ai Weiwei (neugerriemschneider) and Frank Stella (Marianne Boesky Gallery, Dominique Lévy Gallery, Sprüth Magers)
Beyeler Foundation Calder & Fischli/Weiss
Beyeler Foundation is a must-to-visit place every time you go to Basel, as it always hosts exceptional exhibitions which coincide with Art Basel art fair. The foundation itself was founded by Ernst Beyeler and his wife in 1982 in order to show their private collection. Swiss art dealer and collector became "Europe’s pre-eminent dealer in modern art", according to The New York Times, and also was one the founders of Art Basel together with gallerists Trudi Bruckner and Balz Hilt in 1970.
The exhibition charted significant historical milestones in Calder’s oeuvre, from Cirque Calder in the 1920s and his invention of the mobile in the early 1930s and created a dialogue with works by Fischli/Weiss, which perform as counterpoints in this narrative.
Installation view of the exhibition “Alexander Calder & Fischli/Weiss”, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2016; © Peter Fischli David Weiss / 2016 Calder Foundation, New York / ProLitteris, Zurich
Photographs by Mark Niedermann (courtesy of Artribune)
Jack Shainman Gallery at Unlimited
A large multilayered piece by El Anatsui, consisting of five “golden” curtains made of recycled materials.
El Anatsui's Gli (Wall), 2010
Galerie Daniel Templon at Unlimited
Chiharu Shiota’s installation is inspired by the everyday movement, life, and thoughts of the individual. The artist also had magnificent installation ‘The Key in the Hand‘ at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.
Chiharu Shiota ‘Accumulation: Searching for Destination’
The Collector's House supported by Marianne Boesky Gallery, Galleria Continua, and Galerie Krinzinger at Unlimited
Hans Op de Beeck created fictional space with art-historical, cinematic and literary references where everything, like in Pompeii, had become frozen and petrified. This black and white neoclassical evocation of a private room became a reflection on our complex society.
Hans Op de Beeck’s The Collector’s House
König gallery, Unlimited + Art Basel 2016
Alicja Kwade Out of Ousia, 2016 at Unlimited Section
Installation view of works by David Zink Yi, Katharina Grosse and Claudia Comte
Katharina Grosse o. T., 2015 (image courtesy of Artsy)
Pace Gallery, Art Basel 2016
This year Julian Schnabel returned to Arne Glimcher’s Pace (gallery represented artist from 1984 to 2003) after 13 years of working with the Gagosian Gallery. The works are inspired by patterns in photographs of Schnabel’s studio floor, which he renders through inkjet prints and spray-painted ink.
Alongside the new work by Schnabel, Pace also showcased new and recent paintings at its booth by Nigel Cooke, Adrian Ghenie and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.
Installation view of works by Julian Schnabel at Pace Gallery’s booth at Art Basel
Julian Schnabel Ascension IA, 2015 (image courtesy of Artsy)
Marianne Boesky Gallery Art Basel 2016
Matthias Bitzer Orchid, 2016 (image courtesy of Artsy)
Installation view of works by Donald Moffett and Piere Polo Calzolari (image courtesy of Marianne Boesky)
Luxembourg & Dayan at Art Basel, Feature Section, 2016
The piece combines painting (the abstract work includes bars of music from Igor Stravinsky’s 1920 ballet La Pulcinella) by Jannis Kounellis with live music and dance. 15-minute performance was a restaging of the Greek artist’s historic work, Da inventare sul posto (To Invent on the Spot), first debuted at Documenta 5 in 1972.
15-minute performance at Luxembourg & Dayan Booth
Metro Pictures at Art Basel 2016
The gallery showed large-scale bronze sculptures by Camille Henrot and latest series of photographs by Cindy Sherman. The photos centred around the fraying edges of Hollywood glitz and glamour, which was heavily influenced by artist's own struggle to accept the ageing process.
Cindy Sherman Untitled 2016
The Flat - Massimo Carasi, Volta12
Gallery delved into sacred spaces at VOLTA12 via three artists and diverse media. Featuring recent works by Leonardo Ulian (pictured), who continues to blend mathematics, science, and spirituality in his research-driven oeuvre, including the exhibition 'Youth Mode' at Tartu Art Museum last year; Michael Bevilacqua's harnessing of Atari-era gaming culture and Paolo Cavinato's spatial-distorting mixed-media reliefs.
Leonardo Ulian Technological mandala 91 - Come in alto così in basso, 2016
Kunstmuseum Basel Sculpture on the Move 1946–2016
Curated by Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, this exhibition was inaugural for the new and enlarged Kunstmuseum Basel and focused on sculptural art between the end of World War II and the present. The new building across the street was designed by the Basel-based architecture firm Christ & Gantenbein.
Installation view of sculptures by Jean Tinguely and Alexander Calder
Kunstmuseum Basel, © Derek Li Wan Po, Basel (image courtesy of ArchDaily)
Inside Schaudepot, Basel's Vitra Design Museum (image courtesy of Archilovers)
The Vitra Design Museum, built by Frank Gehry, ranks among the most important museums of design worldwide. Each year the museum stages two to three exhibitions on historical and current developments in design.
On 3 June 2016, a new building was opened on the Vitra Campus: the Vitra Schaudepot, designed by the Basel-based architects Herzog & de Meuron. The centrepiece of the Schaudepot is a permanent exhibition of more than 400 key pieces of modern furniture design from 1800 to the present.