ART FAIRS:ART BASEL 2016 Parcours

Andrew Dadson, Black Plant Sunset, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Galleria Franco Noero, David Kordansky Gallery, RaebervonStenglinThe 2016 edition of Parcours presents 19 site-specific artworks, by both internationally renowned and emerging artists, installed around Münsterhügel, the heart of Basel’s old town, in locations such as the cathedral’s chapel, Münsterplatz, the Museum of Culture, an underground tunnel below the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois and historic locations along the river Rhine.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Art Basel 2016 Archive

Parcours engages with Basel’s past and present by weaving artistic interventions into the fabric of the specific location each edition inhabits. This year’s edition will present a ‘human’ or ‘figurative’ stance, says the Curator of Parcours, with artists addressing the relationship to the human body in an ever-more challenging pursuit for individuality and identity. Continuously shifting social political environments produce a tirade of global distress signals, questioning both our self-image and our sense of daily life and purpose.  Sam Durant’s large-scale “Labyrinth” (2015), made of chain-linked fencing material, reflects on the issues of freedom and imprisonment, movement and immobility. Nearby, a group of 16 sculptures by Hans Josephsohn made between 1951 and 2006. Bernar Venet’s site-specific project “Effondrement:Arcs” (2016) seemingly creates a sea of debris with steel arcs toppled and piled one on top of the other.  Alfredo Jaar’s “The Gift” (2016) focuses on mass migration in Europe, in this public intervention, volunteers distribute blue cardboard boxes, offering them as gifts. Instructions ask participants to open and re-fold the boxes inside out, turning them into donation-boxes. Michael Wang’s ongoing project “Terroir” involves taking bedrock from specific cities around the world, the rock is then pulverized and becomes the base for a pigment, which is used to create a monochromatic painting. For Parcours, Wang created a series of new paintings made from stone pigments from the main three locations that supplied building material to the church and the city at large over the course of a thousand years. Trisha Baga presents “MS Orlando” (2015), a three-dimensional video screened inside of the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, opens with a disclaimer noting its conversion from dated technologies, thereby presenting itself as a contemporary relic recovered in the projected future. Baga expertly intertwines her material, balancing the comic and the poetic as image and sound synchronize – not causally, but phenomenologically.  Participating Artists: Trisha Baga, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Andrew Dadson, Michael Dean, Jim Dine, Sam Durant, Alberto Garutti, Alfredo Jaar, Hans Josephsohn, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Eva Koťátková, Allan McCollum, Iván Navarro, Virginia Overton, Tabor Robak, Tracey Rose, Bernar Venet, Michael Wang and Lawrence Weiner. Parcours Night on 18/6 presents special performances, screenings and interactions by: Anne Imhof, Eva Kot’átková, Pádraic Moore, Nástio Mosquito, Tracey Rose and Mathilde Rosier.

Info: Curator: Samuel Leuenberger, Days & Hours: Mon (13/6) 19:00-22:00, Tue (14/6)-Fri (17/6) 11:00-21:00, Sat (18/6) 11:00-00:00, Sun (19/6) 11:00-19:00, www.artbasel.com

Trisha Baga, MS Orlando, 2015, Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, Gió Marconi, Société, Vilma Gold
Trisha Baga, MS Orlando, 2015, Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, Gió Marconi, Société, Vilma Gold

 

 

Daniel Gustav Cramer, Coasts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Sies + Höke (Düsseldorf)
Daniel Gustav Cramer, Coasts, 2016, Courtesy the artist and Sies + Höke (Düsseldorf)

 

 

Virginia Overton, Untitled, 2016Courtesy the artist and White Cube
Virginia Overton, Untitled, 2016Courtesy the artist and White Cube

 

 

Michael Wang, Basel Münster, 2016, Courtesy the artist and the Foxy Production
Michael Wang, Basel Münster, 2016, Courtesy the artist and the Foxy Production

 

 

Alberto Garutti, The dog shown here belongs to one of the families of Trivero. This work is dedicated to those families and to the people who will sit here and talk about them, 2009, Courtesy the artist and Buchmann Galerie
Alberto Garutti, The dog shown here belongs to one of the families of Trivero. This work is dedicated to those families and to the people who will sit here and talk about them, 2009, Courtesy the artist and Buchmann Galerie

 

 

Alfredo Jaar, The Gift, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery, Galerie Lelong, Lia Rumma, kamel mennour, Galerie Thomas Schulte
Alfredo Jaar, The Gift, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery, Galerie Lelong, Lia Rumma, kamel mennour, Galerie Thomas Schulte

 

 

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, The Toilet on the River, 1996-2016, Courtesy the artist and Sprovieri
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, The Toilet on the River, 1996-2016, Courtesy the artist and Sprovieri

 

 

Bernar Venet, Effondrement:Arcs, 2016, Courtesy the artist and von Bartha
Bernar Venet, Effondrement:Arcs, 2016, Courtesy the artist and von Bartha