Experimenter presents Anta(h)shira: An Inner Feeling, a group exhibition with works by Alexandra Bachzetsis, Ayesha Sultana, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Kanishka Raja, Prabhakar Pachpute, Radhika Khimji, and Sakshi Gupta. The presentation draws from the ethos of the Bengali word _Anta(h)shira—_a life-shaping, intravenous entity, that channels sustenance and inspiration from within.
The Kabinett sector of the booth presents Kanishka Raja's work Switzerland for Movie Stars that plots a speculative Google map journey from Srinagar to Geneva in a panoramic, panel painting and an accompanying book.
Alexandra Bachzetsis' (Lives and works Zurich, Switzerland) practice is located at the interface between dance, performance, visual art and theatre, conflating the spaces in which the body, as an artistic and critical apparatus, can navigate. Bachzetsis' work involves choreographies of the body and, in particular, the way that popular culture provides source material for gesture, expression, identification, and fantasy as one constantly reinvents and defines their bodies. Within this, she scrutinises the mutual influence between the use of gesture and movement in the 'popular' or 'commercial' genres on the one hand (online media, video-clip and television as a resource) and in the 'arts' on the other hand (ballet, modern and contemporary dance and performance). For Bachzetsis, the artificial and often precarious relationship between such genres, produce an inquiry into the human body and its potential for transformation, however conceptual or actual. Ultimately, the way we all perform and stage our bodies and ourselves – through stereotypes and archetypes, through choice and cliché, through labour and spectacle is a question that continues to shape her work.
Rooted in process and the act of making, Ayesha Sultana's (b. 1984; lives and works between Jashore, Bangladesh and Atlanta, USA) practice is an ongoing investigation of drawing, of seeing space in continuum, of exploring gaps in visual memory and of looking at the periphery and what is overlooked in plain sight. Sultana's graphite drawings signify a delicate yet intriguing dissonance between appearance and reality, revelation and ambiguity—through configurations and arrangements of geometric shapes and spatial structures, in a frame-by-frame progression of image and time. On closer viewing, the smooth surface of the paper is dark but reflective, nestled within it lies an intricate mesh of frictions and ruptures which animate the tactile surface resembling the texture of metal; thus underscoring the mineral attributes of graphite.
This also refers to an element of three-dimensionality produced by the dialogue between the versatile malleability of paper and the austere physicality of graphite. Christopher Kulendran Thomas' (b. 1979; lives and works in Berlin) paintings algorithmically metabolise Sri Lanka's colonial art history. Growing up in London after his family left escalating ethnic oppression in Sri Lanka—and influenced from afar by his Sri Lankan contemporaries—Kulendran Thomas is interested in how particular conceptions of human expression are transmitted from the centres of global art power and interpreted at the peripheries of where those narratives are defined. By generating new compositions in the form of PNGs through a neural network trained to reproduce patterns of influence of the Western canon on Sri Lanka's contemporary art scene, the resulting images are painted by Kulendran Thomas' studio by hand, bringing another layer of interpretation on an already simulated reality. As a result, these works question human creativity that is reproduced memetically, as it offers a lens into the ambiguous confines of the algorithmic and the human, the individual and the collective as well as authenticity and imitation, while simultaneously questioning how history is written and by whom.
Prabhakar Pachpute's (b. 1986; lives and works in Pune, India) works present views of a dystopic, post-industrial, barren landscape, cohabited by metamorphosed animals, dysfunctional machines and headless humans. Pachpute's work integrates wider research, fiction and personal familial roots that trace the complex historical transformations caused by coal mining and mining labour on an socio-economic and environmental level. His practice is centred around creating immersive and dramatic environments in his site-specific works, using an array of mediums and materials, including drawing, light, stop-motion animations, sound and sculptural forms to critically tackle issues of mining labour and the effects of mining on the natural and human landscape—a subject which is directly dealt with through Pachpute's use of charcoal.
Traversing the macrocosm through one's body as a way of seeing and experiencing, Radhika Khimji (b. 1979; lives and works between Muscat, Oman and London, United Kingdom) draws on an array of mediums and a layered technique of mark-making to reimagine geographies and abstract aspects of the environment. Khimji's visual language searches for a place between architecture and gesture through a collaged way of working. Informed by the physicality and materiality of the making process, Khimji's work navigates the perpetual displacements of the transitory and fluid body moving across a space fragmented by many polarities.
Sakshi Gupta's (b. 1979; lives and works in Mumbai, India) practice explores visual and tactile contradictions and complexities through sculptural reinterpretation of everyday objects. She challenges the boundaries between art and life by juxtaposing materials in unexpected ways, re-evaluating how we perceive what is typically overlooked or considered obsolete. Gupta's sculpture in the form of a fallen palm frond made with sharp industrial metal becomes metaphors of discarded layers of the self. It is reminiscent of shavings of a human shell and even a skeletal structure. Traversing between the worlds of plant, human and animal life, the work portrays a moment of letting go, or being incapable of holding on. It embodies a vulnerable instance of feeling exposed to the bone, accompanied by the profound realisation that one is on one's own unique journey. It reveals a vulnerable instance of feeling exposed to the bone and its inherent inertia, exudes ideas of stillness and surrender.
Kanishka Raja's (1969–2018, India) work Switzerland for Movie Stars that plots a speculative Google map journey from Srinagar to Geneva through a panoramic, panel painting and an accompanying book. This body of work begins with an image taken from a newspaper from Kashmir and it ends with a picture from Geneva, both represented as disembodied spaces, juxtaposed as competing ideas of perfection. The paintings refer to Switzerland and Kashmir by representing them as idyllic landscapes despite being diametrically opposite to each other politically. Kashmir has always been known as the Switzerland of the East, and a popular destination for Indian Bollywood filmmakers for the same purpose. Through body of work , Raja offers a lens into the dichotomy of representation of the idyllic landscape, the disruption and fragmentation of it, alongside the accompanying brochure which has its source in an original Swiss Tourism pamphlet intended to attract Indian businesses while simultaneously laying out a directive of control.
Unlimited Opening (by invitation only)
Monday 10 June 2024
VIP Days (by invitation only)
Tuesday 11 June 2024
Vernissage (access with a Vernissage ticket or by invitation)
Wednesday 12 June 2024, 5pm to 8pm
Public Days (access with a ticket or a VIP Card)
Thursday 13 June 2024, 11am to 7pm
Friday 14 June 2024, 11am to 7pm
Saturday 15 June 2024, 11am to 7pm
Sunday 16 June 2024, 11am to 7pm
Messe Basel
Messeplatz 10 4058 Basel
Switzerland