Art
Courtney Tanz
Installation view of Philippe Parreno, membrane2023, with Fujiko Nakatani, Untitled2024, as part of the Summer Exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2024. © Philippe Parreno and Fujiko Nakaya. Photo by Marc Niedermann. Courtesy of the artist.
Summer in Switzerland means one thing: Basel is getting ready to welcome art lovers from all over the world. Art Basel 2024 will take place from June 13 to 16, and there will be plenty of action, but there are other places in Basel that are just as exciting. In addition to the Messeplatz, the art fair is also a great opportunity to experience art in the city, and Zurich is just an hour away by train, where the Zurich Art Weekend will take place from June 7 to 9.
This year, as part of Art Basel’s Parcours section, public art installations curated by Stefanie Hessler of the Swiss Institute will line Clarastraße along the Rhine, bringing contemporary art outdoors. While there’s a lot to see at the fair itself, there’s even more to see in Basel if you step outside the fair and into its museums and galleries.
Here, we’ve picked 10 museum and gallery exhibitions that are worth leaving the booth to see.
“When We See Us. A Century of Black Images in Painting”
Kunstmuseum Basel
Ends October 27
Zandile Tshabalala, Two Reclining Women2020. © Zandile Tshabalala Studio. Courtesy of the Maduna Collection
Curator Tandazani Dhlakama and Chief Curator Koyo Kouoh of the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town have curated this comprehensive exhibition, which explores how artists on the African continent and in the diaspora have used their life experiences as themes in their art.
The exhibition features works by 156 artists, including Romare Bearden, Esiri Erheriene-Essi, YoYo Lander, Scherezade Garcia and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, and is divided into six different themes: “Everyday,” “Joy and Carnival,” “Rest,” “Sensibility,” “Spirit,” and “Victory and Liberation.” The exhibition’s title was inspired in part by When they see usAs part of Ava DuVernay’s documentary series on the Central Park Five, the exhibition explores how black artists depict their own subjectivity, and in the process offers a diverse perspective on black lives themselves.
Hauser & Wirth
As of July 13
Wilhelm Hammershoi, Double portrait of the artist and his wife seen through a mirror. The Cottage at Spurvesquejur1911. Courtesy of a private collection.
The newly opened Hauser & Wirth Basel gallery is presenting a solo exhibition of work by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi. Curated by Dr. Felix Kramer, the historical exhibition features 16 works by the 19th-century artist, capturing the interiors of Copenhagen buildings and the cityscape of London at the turn of the century. Inspired by Dutch Old Masters such as Johannes Vermeer, Hammershøi uses the dark, neutral colours of the Danish Golden Age to create moody works with a particular focus on light: works that require quiet reflection.
Summer Exhibition
Fondation Beyeler
As of August 11
Installation view of the Fondation Beyeler summer exhibition, Riehen/Basel, 2024. © 2024 ProLitteris Zurich. Photo by Stephane Borel. Courtesy of the Fondation Beyeler.
At the heart of this summer exhibition is Connections, an experimental project that aims to transform the museum and its surrounding gardens into a haven for contemporary art. Creating interrelationships between individual works from the museum’s collection and newly commissioned paintings, sculptures, films and installations, the exhibition features work by 30 contributors, including painters Michael Armitage and Marlene Dumas, as well as many conceptual artists such as Frida Escobedo, Peter Fischli, Koo Jeong A, Cildo Meireles, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Adrián Villar Rojas. In partnership with the LUMA Foundation, and with Philippe Parreno, Tino Seghal and Precious Okomoyon joining the curatorial team, this ambitious and all-encompassing exhibition is conceived as a “living organism that is constantly changing and transforming.”
Kunsthalle Basel
June 7 – September 1
Toyin Ojih Odutola, installation view of “Ilé Oriaku” at Kunsthalle Basel, 2024. Photo: Philipp Hanger. Courtesy of Kunsthalle Basel.
Housed in a stunning 19th-century neoclassical building in the heart of Basel’s cultural district, the gallery is renowned for hosting the first comprehensive institutional exhibition of internationally renowned artists in Switzerland. This includes Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, whose new body of work shapes rich narratives around black characters. Ojih Odutola’s textured portraits layer pastels, pencil, charcoal, and graphite, capturing a uniquely distorted beauty, as if viewed through water.
Bernheim, Zurich
June 7 – July 26
In two exhibitions in Zurich (the other, Rumours, is at Mendes Wood DM in São Paulo), Ebecho Muslimova’s series of drawings depict the artist’s alter ego, Fatebe, in flat, cartoonish lines. The iconic character often finds himself in twisted, surreal situations that imagine desire as a Goya-esque grotesque amidst skyscrapers and modern urban domestic life. In her joyful, irreverent paintings, Muslimova presents a vision of a free, playful female body.
Henze and Kettler Galleries
As of August 17
While formal portraiture previously required long periods of sitting, artists began to adopt new approaches to depicting the nude in the 20th century. In particular, the group of artists known as Die Brücke implemented the “quarter-hour nude” technique, requiring models to pose for less than 15 minutes. Their unique compositions, which emphasized the artist’s own impression rather than physical reality, continue to influence abstract depictions of the nude to this day. Featuring paintings by George Grosz and Georg Baselitz, watercolors by Emil Nolde, and abstract sculptures by Karl Hartung, this exhibition explores figurative depictions of the human figure, using the body as a conduit to explore the human condition.
Jim Shaw, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Biel Art Museum, Biel
June 9 – August 25
Jim Shaw, Jeff in Drag Head Research2022. Photo © Jeff McLane Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian.
Biel is a quaint village located an hour by train from Basel, and it is home to an amazing contemporary art institution that attracts international artists to exhibit. This solo exhibition features Jim Shaw’s photographs, drawings, sculptures and a dozen paintings, giving viewers an insight into the world of this artist. Shaw references pop culture and Hollywood, using a sharp visual language to criticize the values of mainstream society.
The exhibition, co-curated by the Antwerp Museum of Contemporary Art and supported by Gagosian Art Center, also features an immersive installation Electronic Monsters and Thirteen Ghosts (2024). This richly layered black-and-white film uses cartoon imagery and deleted film footage to satirize changes in American culture while showing how pop culture influences our belief systems.
Tschudi Gallery, Zurich
June 7 – August 3
unimportant, 2- Self-portrait2024. Photo: Mattia Angelini. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Tschudi.
Not Vital is one of the most important sculptors of our time. Throughout his decades-long career, he has created an enigmatic visual language that explores our built environment through large-scale sculptures, some of which he calls “Scarchs” (a term that describes a hybrid of sculpture and architecture).
Silence features ghostly new works from the Swiss-born artist, with new paintings and sculptures that include headless figures. Vital’s combination of neutral tones with deep blues forms the main thread of his solo exhibition in Zurich. Evoking Dadaist ideas and inspired by his travels around the world, the exhibition reveals another side of the artist’s practice.
Philipp Zollinger, Zurich
June 7 – July 20
Pedro Virts, A boy with many friends2024. Courtesy of the artist and PHILLIPPZOLLINGER.
Brazilian sculptor Pedro Wirz collaborated with a materials scientist to create adaptable, reusable polymers for this exhibition, which focuses on reimagining our relationship with everyday materials as we respond to the climate crisis. Experimenting with new materials that can be repeatedly reshaped and reimagined, this series of sculptures speaks to the need to address the disposable nature of modern culture, including the art world. In reimagining materiality through the use of these cutting-edge polymers, Wirz draws on iconic mythological imagery, including the myth of Daphne, who transformed herself into a tree to escape the god Apollo. A boy with many friends (2024), a mask-like burnt-clay sculpture adorned with brightly colored flowers, this metamorphosis is evident.
By Barca
June 11th – July 27th
Marina Adams’s paintings are brightly colored and capture the glory days of her life in New York and Parma, Italy. Playing with form and movement, Adams uses soft lines within her signature geometric patterns, which highlights her unique visual language. Adams has exhibited for decades, but only received acclaim in the 2010s, and this will be her first exhibition in Switzerland. The exhibition includes 13 new paintings and several drawings inspired by the patterns of Moorish tiles and carpets.
