Conference of the Birds
Borrowing the title from a famous 12th century poem, we selected works by masters like Rebecca Horn, Pat Steir, Richard Deacon, Alice Aycock, Allan McCollum and Robert Mapplethorpe, concerned with themes of contemplation, beauty and wholeness.
The second iteration of the Art Basel Online Viewing Rooms is happening in challenging times of changing perceptions and questions about values and virtues; questions comprehensively addressed in Farid Al-Din Attar's wonderful epic twelfth century poem 'The Conference of the birds'. This poem lends its title to our selection of works which themselves resemble a conference of birds, whose stories—like Attar's parables—'inhabit the imagination' and whose 'wisdom can trickle down into the heart' as the poet Sholeh WolpĂ© described it. In her words, 'they are being absorbed by each of us in a different way, reflecting on our ideals, ideas, our fears and anxieties.' And they ask us to open up to the truth.
Galerie Thomas Schulte represents these artists: