Art Basel Unlimited
John Baldessari
John Baldessari’s tableau vivant Ear Sofa; Nose Sconces with Flowers (in Stage Setting) (2009/2017) is a unique manifestation of the artist’s career-long engagement with a Surrealism-in ected conceptual art. The installation is comprised of an ear-shaped sofa and two wall-mounted upturned noses housing owers in a dramatic stage setting, made absurd by the presence of a model and a poodle.
The work alludes to Hollywood’s period of Art Deco glamour and theatricality with its semicircular arch on a stage-like pedestal. The ear and nose have a strong prop-like quality, like plaster cast models for a life drawing class or the temporary constructions of a film set.
With these sensory organs rescaled and inserted into a new spatial con guration, they are divested of their humanity but re-gifted a new human edge with the presence of the model and poodle in the dramatic mise en scène.
Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer’s STATEMENT – redacted oscillates on a telescoping robotic arm, measuring over two-and-a-half meters in length. It features scrolling text from the pages of declassified U.S. government documents regarding military operations and the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq. The work presents a stark abstraction of the U.S. administration’s use of language and the syntax of war.
Since the 1970s, Holzer has created text and light installations that often are displayed
in public spaces. Their poetic and critical content raise questions about the complexities, paradoxes, and ironies of social identity and politics. More recent text-based works incorporate declassified U.S. government documents. Memos, sworn statements, emails, court judgments, and images are used for electronics, light projections, and paintings. LED signs are integral to Holzer’s practice and have become her most visible medium. The dynamism of tickers and the linear movement of words engage viewers while they process information, altering their physical and psycho- logical perception of meaning.
Barbara Kruger
Since the 1970s Barbara Kruger has developed conceptual works that often combine text with found material from mass media. By creating a contrast between the motif and the textual content while simultaneously enhancing the partially violent visuality of the image, Kruger addresses the powerful influence exercised upon human identity by media and politics. In the context of her work, recurring themes are the fetishization of the female body, the promotion of consumption, and the establishment of cultural models. In the interplay between manipulation and imitation of human desires, Kruger develops a critical picture of society.
Likewise, the exhibited wallpaper displays Kruger’s strong political voice and is highly topical in regards to the alt-right European and U.S. American political shift and the crisis of migration at the same time. It was rst shown in 1994 for the World Morality show at Kunsthalle Basel. In 2015, Kruger redid a version for the show Fire and Forget: On Violence at Kunst-Werke Berlin.
Otto Piene
Otto Piene’s mammoth inflatable sculpture Blue Star Linz is a tentacled structure nearly as high as it is wide and sprawling. Piene’s inflatables, which are rhythmically filled with air and inflated with the assistance of programmed blowers, are part of his project towards a dematerialization of sculpture. With the main medium being air, Piene looked towards a redefinition of sculpture that accompanied his other experiments with light and fire. Blue Star Linz at once resembles a multi-limbed sea creature and flowering or spiked fauna alike. Late in his career, Piene produced numerous ‘sky art’ inflatables, typically with similar pointed forms, and, in this instance, the blue flower is both a symbol of yearning in German romanticism, and also an echo of the monochrome blue used by his friend Yves Klein.
Blue Star Linz was first shown in 1980 at the International Bruckner Festival, in Linz, Austria, and was accompanied by a recital of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, the ‘Romantic’. It was presented again the following year at MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, its long, towering limbs inflated to their full height of 300 feet.
Opening Hours
Private Days (by invitation only)
Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Vernissage (by invitation only)
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Public Days
Thursday, 15 June 2017
11am to 7pm
Friday, 16 June 2017
11am to 7pm
Saturday, 17 June 2017
11am to 7pm
Sunday, 18 June 2017
11am to 7pm