Art Feature
The Art Feature sector at Art Basel spotlights precise projects in highly focused stands, located alongside Art Galleries on both floors of Hall 2. These 20 projects including solo presentations, juxtapositions and thematic exhibits from artists representing a wide range of cultures, generations, and artistic approaches.
Please scroll down for further information on specific projects.
Index Art 41 Basel, Art Feature
B
Art Attitude Herve Bize | Nancy: André Cadere (1934-1978)
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi | Berlin: Carol Rama (1918),
Leonor Antunes (1972)
The Breeder | Athens: Vlassis Caniaris (1928)
C
Casas Riegner Gallery | Bogota: Mateo López (1978),
José Antonio Suárez (1955)
Gallery Chemould Prescott Road | Mumbai: Atul Dodiya (1959), Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003)
Mehdi Chouakri | Berlin: Saâdane Afif (1970)
James Cohan Gallery | New York: Robert Smithson
(1938-1973)
D
Monica De Cardenas | Milano: Markus Raetz (1941)
F
Galerie Thomas Flor | Düsseldorf: Michael Buthe (1944-1994)
G
gb agency | Paris: Július Koller (1939-2007), Jiří Kovanda (1953), Roman Ondák (1966)
Alexander Gray Associates | New York: Jack Whitten (1939)
K
francesca kaufmann | Milano: Lily van der Stokker (1954)
M
Galerie Mezzanin | Wien: Thomas Bayrle (1937)
S
Sakshi Gallery | Mumbai: Chieh-Jen Chen (1960)
Anna Schwartz Gallery | Melbourne: Shaun Gladwell (1972)
Standard (OSLO) | Oslo: Peder Balke (1804-1887),
Matias Faldbakken (1973), Josh Smith (1978), Oscar Tuazon (1975)
Diana Stigter | Amsterdam: Jimmy Robert (1975),
Maaike Schoorel (1973)
V
Vilma Gold | London: Charles Atlas (1949), John Cage
(1912-1992), Merce Cunningham (1919-2009)
W
Barbara Wien Wilma Lukatsch | Berlin: Tomas Schmit
(1943-2006), Nina Canell (1979)
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff | Paris: Franz Erhard Walther (1939)
Art Attitude Hervé Bize (Nancy) has conceived especially for
Art Feature a solo show of André Cadere's works with master pieces (abstract paintings and wooden sticks), some of them have never been exhibited before.
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi (Berlin) presents a dialogue between artists Carol Rama (b.1918 Turin) and Leonor Antunes (b.1972 Lisbon). Carol Rama received Leonor Antunes at her studio and home which has grown with her over the past 60 years. Its unique environment is the starting point of Antunes’ project for Art Feature in which she develops new sculptures related to specific objects, furniture and displays from Rama’s studio. These will be exhibited together with a selection of Rama’s own works from the 50's and 70's selected by both artists.
For Art Feature, The Breeder (Athens) presents influential and historically important artist Vlassis Caniaris (born 1928, Athens) with the installation "Room" (1974). The work belongs in the "Gastarbeiter – Fremdarbeiter" (Guest Workers-Foreign Workers) series from the early 70ies which addressed the dilemmas of displacement, alienation, marginalization, and objectification of Greek ‘guest workers‘ in Germany.
Casas Riegner Gallery (Bogotá) mounts a show of José Antonio Suárez Londońo and Mateo López's drawings. By revisiting art history and appropriating musical and literary references, they both engage with the outside world through pencil and paper, where subtle humor pierces every situation. One of Mateo’s art historical references is José Antonio Suárez. This generational dialog is the key element of our curatorial approach.
Chemould Prescott Road (Bombay) presents Atul Dodiya and Bhupen Khakhar. Dodiya's painted rolling shutters are a response to the late Indian painter Khakhar's early work from the 70s, popularly known as the Trader Series, celebrating the common man. It was through this work, that Khakhar introduced the element of kitsch and the popular to modern Indian painting in the 60s. Dodiya was one among many in his generation that relished Khakhar's freedom in creating art. Responding to Khakhar's three 'Shops', Dodiya takes a leap onto real shop shutters appropriating imagery of art from other times and other places. In the three shutters, he depicts Russian Avant-Garde painter Kazimir Malevich's peasants standing upright facing the bullets.
Mehdi Chouakri (Berlin) presents works by Saâdane Afif, the recipient of the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2009. The artist is concerned with the mutability of forms and systems, he submits his own works and the works by others to a constant process of transformation. Saâdane Afif’s works are of interdisciplinary nature. Drawing elements from art history, music and poetry, the works will be transformed into installations and objects during a longer processing period.
James Cohan Gallery (New York) mounts a solo exhibition of rare and early works on paper by Robert Smithson, IKONS, in which the artist employed quasi-religious imagery. These important works, dating from 1960 - 1973, illustrate Smithson’s musings on transcendence, fragmentation and popular culture as they relate to the commercialization of religious imagery and the depiction of the Christ figure in contemporary art. Of particular interest are how Smithson’s investigations echo
his ultimate interest in entropy found within his later works on paper, non-sites and iconic earthworks dating from 1969 - 1973.
The group show at gb agency (Paris) engages notion of connections between generations from East culture with
works by Július Koller, Jirí Kovanda, and Roman Ondák in a multilayered constellation, confronting their approaches as
it aims to reveal formal and fundamental legacies and differentiate their positions. Through small gestures, micro-events, or anti-happenings, their practice emphasizes the fragile thresholds that demarcate life from art and reality from
its representation.
Alexander Gray Associates (New York) presents an exhibition surveying New York-based, African-American abstract painter, Jack Whitten. The booth exhibits paintings spanning forty years, presenting a range of material inventions and social content in Whitten’s career. Of particular note are abstract works from the 1970s, when Whitten’s experimentation turned to abstraction, developing new methods of painting. In these critically acclaimed works, brushstroke was removed from the making
of the work; instead, paint and canvas were “processed”, using large troughs to hold paint, and dragging canvas across, with squeegees, rakes, and Afro combs to create surface texture, line, and voids.
For Art Feature francesca kaufmann will present a wall painting and installation by Lily van der Stokker titled "Transfer that money to me". This phrase blazons across a large 'decorative' floral motif accompanied by a couch patterned in a similar fashion, a poignant gesture that offers up a mixture of cynical humor and critique.
Monica De Cardenas Gallery presents a solo show of Swiss artist Markus Raetz. For more than 30 years Markus Raetz (born in Bern 1941) has reflected on the language of art as a form of visual communication by means of poetic and essential images and sculptures. Since the start of the 1990s Raetz has been working on a new cycle of sculptures, the anamorphoses: iron or bronze fusions which show a different appearance according to the viewpoint we look at them.
Galerie Mezzanin (Vienna) mounts a solo show by thomas bayrle, presenting an installation of a complex body of works, bayrle has had in mind already for decades. the centerpiece of the show, an aircraft engine which has never been executed until now, points out his artistic and intellectual practice in a quintessential way. as bayrle, working as a weaver in his early years, is cought since then by rhe principle of weaving structures whether they are of physical or immaterial nature. the sound, deriving from the engine, refers to the noise of automatic looms and is blended in an uncanny way with rhythmical humming of elderly women praying the rosary. bayrle articulates a parallelism between industrialisation and church – structures that gave direction to modernity.
Sakshi Gallery (Mumbai/Taipei) mounts a solo show of Chen Chieh-Jen’s film, "Factory". Chen mainly deals with issues of globalization, labor, consumerism and migration in his works. In this film, he intermixed women laborers bodily gestures with documentary footage produced by the government back in the 1960s, when Taiwan’s manufacturing industry was in its infancy, in a mutually contrasting evolution.
Anna Schwartz Gallery (Melbourne & Sydney) presents a video installation by Shaun Gladwell for Art Feature, inspired by the artist’s recent travels to Afghanistan with the International Security Assistance Force. The work imagines a creative misuse of military equipment. The deadly function of the automatic weapon is disregarded for its new use as a precariously balancing/falling pole/phallus. Video cameras become training aids for target practice. The work is positioned amongst the artist’s personal experience and interpretation, and wider political and aesthetic speculations.
STANDARD (Oslo) is pleased to present the exhibition project "Unmapping. Unmaking. Unmeaning.". The exhibition takes the works of Norwegian painter Peder Balke (1804-1887) as a starting point – juxtaposing one of his miniature landscape paintings with works by gallery artists Matias Faldbakken, Josh Smith and Oscar Tuazon.
Galerie Diana Stigter (Amsterdam) mounts a duo presentation of Maaike Schoorel's (NL) paintings and Jimmy Robert's (FR) collages and installations.
Schoorel presents a new series of paintings consisting out of self portraits. Some are based on photographs, others on memory. In her works Schoorel questions the status of todays self-portraiture. Is the esthetic (and maybe even ethic) consequence of a digital photograph put on Twitter or Facebook the ultimate democratic idea of constructing the self?
Robert presents a choreography of images, arranged as though a phrase, where the material as well as the seater are both in motion, at once an exercise and a table of content, the over bearing shadow of Bruce Nauman is never really far as though one were fetishising not only the materials but Art itself.: ‘this may become a very erotic exercise.
Vilma Gold (London) present the collaborative installation "Joints", showcasing previously unseen work by Charles Atlas, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Reflecting Atlas's ongoing engagement with dance, his series of 1971 films made with Merce Cunningham will be shown across a choreographed arrangement of nine monitors. As Cage's unpublished ambient recordings of cities are broadcast, spotlights will cast multiple and shifting shadows across the configuration.
For Art Feature Galerie Barbara Wien Wilma Lukatsch (Berlin) presents two artistic positions dealing with possible connections between art and natural science. The gallery shows a combination of the work of Tomas Schmit (1943-2006) which stems from his genuine interest in perception and behavioral science and the sculptural work of Nina Canell (*1979). As a point of departure for Art Feature, Canell takes the idea of Schmit‘s very first work, "zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) no. 1" (1962). Her installation will further her interest in questioning the reliability and fixity of physical forms.
For Art Features, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris) proposes an exceptional ensemble of early works by Franz Erhard Walther. Before defining the artwork as an action, through performing sculptures in time and space, early investigations of Franz Erhard Walther used air as material of immateriality in the early 60’s. This rare ensemble underlines the key role of Franz Erhard Walther as a precursor to conceptual art.