Art Basel announces further highlights for its 2023 edition

The 2023 edition of Art Basel in Basel will feature 284 of the world’s leading galleries
from across the globe, showcasing the highest quality of works across all media including
painting, sculpture, photography, and digital artworks. 21 first-time participants will join a
robust line-up of European exhibitors and returning galleries from around the world. In
addition to remarkable presentations in its Galleries, Feature, Statements, and Edition
sectors, Art Basel 2023 will present 76 large-scale installations and performances in
Unlimited, while the Kabinett sector will debut at the Basel edition to spotlight distinct
curated exhibitions within the main booths of exhibitors. Showcasing Art Basel’s ongoing
commitment to dynamic public programming, 26 site-specific public art projects in
Parcours and Latifa Echakhch’s activation of the city’s Messeplatz will transform Basel’s
public spaces. Free to the public, Art Basel’s Conversations series will explore topics of
care, collectivity, and connectivity, while the Film program will showcase a unique lineup
of surveys, documentaries, and a special program on sci-fi and magical realism.

‘We look forward to bringing the international artworld together this June for another
premier edition of our show in Basel, which will once again stage ambitious curated
sectors both within halls and throughout the city,’ says Vincenzo de Bellis, Director, Fairs
and Exhibition Platforms. ‘We are particularly excited to introduce Kabinett to our Basel
show for the first time, offering visitors the opportunity to dive deeper into an artist's
practice through focused solo and thematic presentations within galleries' booths.

Unlimited returns with 76 exceptional projects and an ever-broader range of artistic positions that challenge and expand traditional narratives. Outside the halls, Parcours celebrates its largest edition to date, with 26 installations that engage with the specificities of space and temporality.’

Unlimited
Art Basel’s unique sector for large-scale projects, Unlimited provides exhibitors the opportunity to present monumental installations, colossal sculptures, boundless wall paintings, comprehensive photo series, and expansive video projections. Unlimited will be curated for the third time by Giovanni Carmine, Director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen.

Highlights from Unlimited include:

Firelei Báez’s ‘the vast ocean of all possibilities (19°36'16.9"N 72°13'07.0"W / 41°30'32.3"N 81°36'41.7"W)’ (2022), part of an ongoing series in which the artist reimagines the archaeological ruins of the San-Souci Palace in northern Haiti. In this series the artist reimagines the historical significance of Haiti and the Caribbean at large in counternarratives of migration, revolution, and survival. Presented by James Cohan Gallery.
• ‘How Did He Die’ (2016) by Diamond Stingily, a single channel projection of footage showing young Black girls playing call and response songs and dances. The viewer stands on one side of a chain-link fence installed in front of the wall displaying the film, implying cultural, structural, and chronological distance. Presented by Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi and Cabinet.
• Monica Bonvicini’s ‘Never Again’ (2005), in which a collection of swings composed from steel pipes, black leather, belts, and chains are suspended from a steel structure. Incorporating research on psychoanalysis, sexuality, labor, feminism, and architecture, the work addresses how spaces dictate behavior. Presented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, and Galerie Krinzinger.
• The participative artwork ‘Environnement Chromointerférent (Paris)’ (1974) by Carlos Cruz-Diez creates a virtual non-material event in space to reveal the ambiguous nature of color. Presented by Galleria Continua.
• Olaf Nicolai’s ‘Ménage de la maison’ (2022), in which people sweep with a plastic broom while speaking, humming, or singing. The performance invites passersby to pause and more closely consider what happens around them. Presented by Galerie Eigen + Art.
• The nearly 9-meter-long monumental triptych, ‘Memorial II (Triptychon)’ (2021) by Martha Jungwirth, depicts figures inspired by animals that have perished in environmental disasters. The figures also reference the sculpted creatures found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, designed to accompany him on his journey into the afterlife. Presented by Thaddaeus Ropac.
• Khalil Rabah’s ‘Relocation, Among Other Things’ (2018), consisting of several sculptural assemblages addressing nomadism, of life suspended across different countries and homelands. Presented by Sfeir-Semler Gallery.

Giovanni Carmine, Curator of Unlimited, says: ‘Unlimited serves as a space for art to unfold in its inherent power and societal significance. It is truly inspiring to witness galleries and artists embracing the potential of this platform, a space where new and context-specific productions are presented. In addition to well-known names like Barbara Kruger, Bruce Nauman, or Christian Marclay, visitors will also have the opportunity to encounter lesser-known artists such as Yuki Kimura or Firelei Báez, whose contributions captivate with their poetic precision. With the distinctiveness of Unlimited in mind, we look forward to the discussions sparked by the encounters between the artworks and the public this year.’

Art Basel’s Unlimited Night will return on Thursday, June 15, providing visitors the chance to experience the sector alongside special performances during extended opening hours.

Parcours
Returning to Basel’s city center with 26 site-specific projects and performances, this year’s Parcours will be presented under the theme ‘Word of Mouth’ and reflect on the current state of artmaking as a means of expression that translates social and political communication. Parcours is curated by Samuel Leuenberger, founder of the non-profit exhibition spaces SALTS in Birsfelden and Country SALTS in Bennwil. Access to all Parcours projects is free to the public.

Highlights from Parcours include:
• Laure Prouvost’s new video work ‘No More Front Tears’ (2022), which explores notions of migrations by humans, as well as animals and plants. In her unique and poetic way, the artist invites the viewers to a deeper and contextualized engagement with questions of borders, migration, and togetherness. Presented by carlier gebauer.
• A selection of wall carpets by Noa Eshkol at Bau- und Verkehrsdepartement Basel-Stadt, which will be set in dialogue with dance compositions developed in the mid and late 20th century by the artist. Presented by neugerriemschneider.
• Julian Charrière’s ‘Controlled Burn’ (2022), a new drone film taking viewers on a cosmic voyage through a landscape of pyrotechnics, coal mines, oil rigs, and rusting powerplants. On view at the Vortragssaal of Kunstmuseum Basel, presented by Sean Kelly, Sies + Höke, and Galerie Tschudi and with additional support of Dittrich & Schlechtriem.
• Jacolby Satterwhite’s presentation that explores themes of faith, mythology, rehabilitation, and spiritual acceptance through two video installations, a Virtual Reality work, and a painting. His works will be showcased across two floors of the Museum der Kulturen. Presented by Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
• ‘Shhh!’, Luís Lázaro Matos’ intervention at the Kunstmuseum Basel's library that subverts the austerity of the public site as a dwelling of knowledge. The work consists of a series of paintings that depict mythical hybrids of half human and half goat; the currency of desire animating these therianthropic entities is governed by the fetish of exhibitionism, as well as the consumption and destruction of knowledge. Presented by Madragoa.

Samuel Leuenberger, Curator of Parcours at Art Basel, says: ‘From using the language of sculpture to convey a message to exploring the sonic textures of polyphony in immersive installations, this edition explores how artists have used both traditional and experimental modes of communication to better understand how we connect across dispersed geographies, durations, and contexts. Visitors will see some of the city’s most unusual and best-kept secrets opened through an array of artistic projects, with locations including libraries, private meeting rooms in financial institutions, domestic gardens, underground tunnels, bars, and even traffic roundabouts.’

On Saturday, June 17, Parcours Night from 6 to 11pm will offer a festive night filled with live performances in the greater Münsterplatz area. Free public access. Museums, Institutions and other venues presenting Parcours projects have extended opening hours to provide visitors a unique experience. Food and drinks available from various food trucks on Münsterplatz.

Kabinett
Kabinett, the sector dedicated to curated and thematic presentations featured in a separate section within galleries’ main booths, will make its debut at the Basel show with 13 presentations from 14 galleries.

Highlights from Kabinett include:
• The series ‘Untitled (Map / Species)’, in which Anri Sala reworks maps of geopolitical territories through manual manipulation, warping representations of topography to fit within the boundaries of found etchings of biological species with which they are exhibited. Presented by Esther Schipper.
• Hugh Steers’ paintings of allegorical depictions capturing the tenor of New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The most extensive survey of the artist’s work in Europe to date, the presentation brings together intimate works that are poignant symbols of life under the specter of AIDS. Presented by Alexander Gray Associates.
• Building on the concept of a cabinet of curiosities as a room containing a small universe, works by Débora Arango, Feliza Bursztyn, Beatriz González, Luz Lizarazo, Luis Roldán, and Icaro Zorbar question notions of art, mysticism, the realm of the feminine, the female body, transcendence, sustainability, human relationships, and the mere act of seeing. Presented by Casas Riegner.
• Henrik Håkansson’s piece, ‘Untitled Swarm (Sturnus vulgaris) #3’, combines the interest in the environment from a biologist, an anthropologist and an artist simultaneously, focusing on the process of the careful observation of the daily miracles found within nature. This mobile-style sculpture, heavily inspired by the works of Alexander Calder, will be shown in dialogue with newly created paintings by the artist. Co-presented by Meyer Riegger and Galleria Franco Noero, long-standing booth neighbours at Art Basel.

Messeplatz
The city’s Messeplatz will feature a site-specific presentation by Moroccan, Swiss-based artist Latifa Echakhch, curated by Samuel Leuenberger, Curator for Parcours at Art Basel. Echakhch, who represented Switzerland at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, has a long tradition of working with deconstructed stages – the symbol of wreckage and ruins – to uncover the hopes and possibilities contained within. A sprawling superstructure situated in the Messeplatz will be the backdrop for a series of live concerts and performances organized in collaboration with Luc Meier, Director of La Becque Artist Residency. The musical acts interrogate the fundamentals of sound and music-making as a shared experience between the artist and the audience. Beyond the performances, the various islands and stage settings will be available for the public to sing, recite poetry, share knowledge, or simply come to rest.

Film
The Film program presents a week of extraordinary artists’ cinema projects and is curated by Filipa Ramos, founding curator of the online video platform Vdrome and lecturer at the Arts Institute of the FHNW in Basel, in collaboration with Marian Masone, New York-based independent curator.

The program will begin on Monday, June 12 with Laura Poitras’ ‘All the Beauty and Bloodshed,’ focusing on the life, work, and activism of artist Nan Goldin and her efforts to hold Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler's, accountable for the opioid epidemic within the US, while exposing the Sackler family’s patronage of prominent cultural institutions.

On Tuesday, June 13, films by the 2023 Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Winner Simone Forti will be presented. The survey ‘Simone Forti Dances the News’ displays how Forti visually expressed the world news through choreography from the 1980s to present, showcasing the artist’s coalescence of dance, performance, drawing, and sculpture.

Additional Film program highlights include:
• ‘Welcome Visitors!’ by Penny Siopis, which combines home-movie footage with music and text to delineate stories revealing the ways that the personal, political, and social are deeply entangled. Siopis’ visually stunning and poetically striking videos address the complex history of South Africa, revealing how it was signed by colonialism and apartheid, madness and modernity, migration and globalization.

• ‘The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons’ by Judd Tully and Harold Crooks chronicles the career of elusive artist David Hammons from the Watts Rebellion era of 1960s Los Angeles to his global prominence. With contributors including artists, curators, and critics, archival footage, as well as animation, the film documents the work of an artist who constantly defies the establishment and remains subversive. 

The Film program is free to the public and will take place from Monday, June 12 to Saturday, June 17 at Stadtkino Basel. Further details will be announced closer to the fair.

Conversations
Curated by Emily Butler, Conversations brings together today’s most inspiring cultural figures. The series will feature over 50 thought leaders as they exchange on the key topics shaping the world of art and culture. This edition will focus on the subjects of care, collectivity, and connectivity and will feature panels focusing on artist-led spaces on the African continent, parenthood in the arts, the more inclusive architecture of museums in the future, and the ethical and artistic implications of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

Highlights from this year’s Conversations series include:
• Launching the program, Lubaina Himid discussing her pioneering practice including her seminal 1986 installation ‘A Fashionable Marriage’, an ever-relevant satire on art and global politics featured in this year’s Unlimited program, in ‘Premiere Artist Talk’.
• Khanyisile Mbongwa, Liverpool Biennial 2023 curator, delving into the Biennial’s central theme 'uMoya: The sacred Return of Lost Things', a call for ancestral wisdom and healing, with artists Nolan Oswald Dennis and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński
• Gallerist Amrita Jhaveri, economists Dr Clare McAndrew and Sophie Perceval reflecting on the findings about the slow rise in representation of women artists in The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2023, and debating the possible paths towards significant change
• A sonic performance by Julianknxx that will take place during Unlimited Night on Thursday, June 15. Singer Anaiis and a choir accompany the poet and
multidisciplinary artists' short film, 'In A Dream We Are at Once Beautiful', which portrays the experiences of African diasporic communities in Switzerland

Other speakers include Es Devlin, Kadiatou Diallo, Brian Droitcour, Primavera de Filippi, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jeni Fulton, Coline Milliard, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, Yinka Shonibare, András Szántó, Suzanne Treister, Roger Wattenhofer, Dana Whabira, Bernadine Bröcker Wieder,Kulapat Yantrasast and more.

Conversations will take place from June 14 to 17 in Hall 1. The series is free to attend and will be livestreamed on facebook.com/artbasel

Source: Art Basel