What Are Galleries Bringing to Paris+ par Art Basel 2023?
Founders and directors of A Gentil Carioca, Cardi Gallery, François Ghebaly, and Skarstedt introduce highlights of their booths.
Arjan Martins, untitled (2023). Acrylic on canvas. 140 x 120 cm. Courtesy the artist and A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo.
Marcio Botner, Co-founder of A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo
We will present a special booth that aims to talk about the fundamental roots of Brazilian culture—African and Indigenous—through the work of three artists.
Arjan Martins was one of the first to lead the entire discussion on the trafficking route of enslaved African people in the Atlantic, the profound discussion of African heritage in Brazil. Denilson Baniwa is an indigenous artist and activist, currently participating in the São Paulo Biennial, who discusses the matters of indigenous peoples and contemporary times. And O Bastardo is a young artist starting a very powerful discussion about African roots in dialogue with today's daily life.
Denilson Baniwa's work, Aluga-se (2023), uses traditional tree bark. It talks about the occupation and deforestation of the Amazon forest and how indigenous land should be valued.
I will also mention an untitled painting by Arjan Martins, pictured top, which depicts the moment of arrival of a young Nigerian immigrant to Brazil and who spent 14 days in the helm area of a vessel coming from his country of origin, on the African continent, without water or food. When he arrives he is greeted with a bottle of water and asks for asylum in Brazil. This young man's name is Ebimene, which means 'kindness'.
Nicolò Cardi, CEO of Cardi Gallery, Milan
We wanted to showcase some of the great artistic movements of the last half century, from Spatialism to Minimalism and beyond. With an emphasis on essential forms and colours, artists like Lucio Fontana, Donald Judd, Daniel Buren, and John Mccracken pushed the mediums of painting and sculpture to their ultimate forms.
Their works on display enact a striking visual dialogue made up of brightly coloured planes, neatly defined geometries and a dynamic use of the exhibition space, conveying each artist's concern with the nature of perception and materiality.
Within this curated selection, Fontana's iconic slashes certainly stand out. Concetto Spaziale, Attese (1965–1966): four dramatic single slashes cut through the artist's bold yellow tableau that perform Fontana's search of the infinite, amplified by the contrasting presence of the black verso of the painting.
As importantly, Untitled (1979) by Donald Judd demonstrates the artist's belief in both the optical and expressive power of colour, to exert physical reactions in those who observed his work.
Gan Uyeda, Partner at François Ghebaly, Los Angeles
Our booth this year features Farah Al Qasimi, Marius Bercea, Max Hooper Schneider, Patricia Iglesias Peco and Jessie Makinson in a group booth that thinks about the natural world and its mediation through images and technology.
Farah Al Qasimi is having a moment in London, with a recently opened and quickly lauded exhibition at Delfina Foundation and with a year-long showing in Tate's permanent collection galleries opening in November. Her installation in our booth captures her innovative approach to layering images and places.
Argentina-born, LA-based Patricia Iglesias Peco is another booth highlight. Her new paintings use complex colour palettes and a gestural touch to get at the wildness of flowers and the painting process itself.
Maria Cifuentes, Director at Skarstedt, Paris
We have chosen to exhibit a selection of the gallery's historical artists including Eric Fischl, Richard Prince, and Andy Warhol, as well as artists that showcase the breadth of our programme, such as John Chamberlain, Jeff Koons, and Joan Miró. These offer entry points into the history of 20th and 21st century art, in dialogue with recent works by Chantal Joffe and Sue Williams.
The fair's decision to show artworks around the city offered us the exciting possibility to present a Hans Josephsohn's sculpture in the Tuileries Garden in anticipation of the artist's retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2024, which will be curated by Albert Oehlen. Our presentation at the fair coincides with Josephsohn's debut exhibition with Skarstedt, currently on view in our New York gallery.
Andy Warhol's Mona Lisa Four Times (1973) is a central piece in the artist's series of the ultimate Renaissance icon, which in time has become an emblem of the city of Paris. Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is a subject Warhol returned to repeatedly throughout his career, and a statement of his reflections on art history and his own role as an artist. The work is at once testiment to Warhol's respect for the master painter, and to the broader ambition underlying his exploration of the concepts of celebrity and seriality.
KAWS' SEPARATED (2021), depicting the emblematic COMPANION, finds the character gripped by a great sense of melancholia. Their closed body language conveys loneliness, offering a powerful commentary on the social fracture of our times. —[O]
