Until Sunday, June 22, Art Basel is hosting its 56th edition and presenting dozens of remarkable works in its Unlimited area, featuring artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Lonnie Holley. Numéro has selected six of them, commented by Giovanni Carmine, the director of the Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen and curator of this exhibition.
Interview with Giovanni Carmine, curator of Unlimited at Art Basel
Numéro: According to you, what characterizes the artworks of this new edition of Unlimited at Art Basel?
Many of the works share a humanistic quality. You can see it in Andrea Büttner’s Shame Punishments, in Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ platform, which invites visitors to wait for the performer who will activate it, or in the motivational messages boldly displayed on Marinella Senatore’s illuminated structure at the entrance of the exhibition… With Atelier Van Lieshout’s parade, we’re even moving toward utopia! This selection is both political and poetic. Even slightly apocalyptic, as seen in Walid Raad’s installation, which explores themes of destruction and reconstruction. To me, it reflects the current state of the world quite accurately.
It seems that you also have more sculpture than in the past…
Indeed, we built 40% fewer walls compared to last year, which was already a fairly open edition. It was a real challenge to create spaces for all these sculptures with a few partitions only.
What is the process behind the preparation of this area, from the selection of the artworks to their installation?
Galleries apply with a project. We either accept or reject it with the selection committee at the end of January. They always offer an ideal sketch of the installation, and I discuss it with them to adjust it according to the needs, space, other selected works, etc. By April, everything must be sketched out. It’s two and a half months of intense work with the galleries. Then, we only have four days to install everything once the artworks arrive. While there might be a few minor adjustments on site, everything is already mapped out. There are so many people and crates in the same place at the same time, that it would be unmanageable without this planning ahead!
“The Unlimited editions reflect the trends of art market.” Giovanni Carmine
What major changes have you noticed in the projects exhibited since your arrival five years ago?
When I started as the curator of Unlimited, we were in the middle of the pandemic and faced many logistical problems – shipping artworks between continents was extremely limited… The first editions I curated included many paintings, as it was easier to transport them. Since then, I’d say our selections have closely followed market trends.
This year’s edition features many artists from Asia and the Middle East. Partly because Western collectors are increasingly interested in these markets, but also because some cultures, like Korean culture, are gaining global influence. A few years ago, the exhibition featured many more African-American artists, for instance.
There also seems to be a growing presence of textiles in the monumental installations on display. I remember Chiharu Shiota’s giant installation last year. This year, one can see a gigantic structure by Nicola Turner winding around one of the columns, as well as a hand-tufted wool carpet by Caroline Achaintre…
Yes, it’s something we already noticed in the practices of art school students about ten years ago. We can notice the link with ecological concerns and a desire to use natural, sustainable, biodegradable materials, like Nicola Turner with her wool and horsehair sculpture. Besides, we spend our lives in front of screens, so many artists are seeking to reconnect with materials through hands-on work.
1. The gogo dancer in briefs, an iconic performance by Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Most visitors at Unlimited will only see a sky-blue square platform with a mirrored surface, dotted with yellow light bulbs. But at several points in time during the day, a gogo dancer wearing nothing but silver pants and white sneakers will step onto the platform unannounced and dance for about five minutes to music playing in his headphones. Felix Gonzalez-Torres first presented this performance in 1991 at the Andrea Rosen Gallery. At the time, the artist was mourning the recent loss of both his partner and his father, and this work plays with the idea of absence, catching the viewer off guard. Since then, it has been shown in major international institutions, from the Centre Pompidou to the Hammer Museum, and was even reinterpreted by artist Sturtevant.
Giovanni Carmine: “The original idea behind this performance is about the wait. Most of the time, it’s not activated. According to the artist’s instructions, it’s up to the dancer to decide when to appear and how to dance. Another unique aspect of that work is that it can only be shown in one place at a time. It is always the same platform, and the exhibiting institution selects the dancer, in this case, the Hauser & Wirth Gallery.”
2. Petra Cortright: 16 years of webcam selfie videos
In 2007, American artist Petra Cortright filmed herself using her computer’s webcam for less than two minutes. The artist let a few digital animations drift across her face before uploading the video on YouTube. That simple act would eventually become a ritual, culminating in what is now showcased at Unlimited. 200 videos in total displayed across 50 screens. A mosaic of moving images that unveils the evolution of the artist and her behaviour in front of the camera over time. But also the changes happening in technology, digital design, and framing techniques. By embracing a tool that became widely accessible to anyone with the rise of the internet, the artist has developed a profound reflection on self-representation for more than fifteen years.
Giovanni Carmine: “Petra Cortright completed this series two years ago, putting an end to sixteen years of production. The idea shared by the artist and the gallery was to bring them all together in a single, retrospective installation. For a time, you could even buy the videos on YouTube. They weren’t very expensive! Here, we’re seeing the complete series in its final form, it’s the big reveal. The setup has evolved nonetheless. Initially, they planned to use fewer screens and show the videos one at a time. In the end, they added enough monitors so that a large number of them can be viewed at the same time.”
3. Atelier Van Lieshout’s utopian and offbeat journey
How about assembling a series of axes stuck in logs, a crucifix made of bottles, a mannequin with a prosthetic leg, and a rolling medicine cabinet, all that led by a pair of giant long-horned oxen? Atelier Van Lieshout did it at Unlimited. For the fair, the cooperative run by Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout unveils a monumental parade made of over 80 objects, hybrid motorized machines, anthropomorphic sculptures, and other quirky gadgets that have been long-forgotten in its studios. A thrilling “march toward utopia” that cuts diagonally across the area’s hall and invites visitors to enter an alternative reality – one that is both vivid and surprisingly tangible.
Giovanni Carmine: “Atelier Van Lieshout has been working on this piece for five years. They conceived it as a real parade. They even contacted me before the selection process to tell me about it, and I felt Unlimited was the perfect place to display it for the first time. After all, it’s 90 meters long! The project is a journey toward utopia, a narrative divided into multiple chapters and each chapter being an artwork in itself. First comes childhood, with the little cart, followed by the series of heroes, the music… In the middle, we have the materiality and logistics – food, medicine. Then the fallen monuments, the weapons needed for revolution, all the way to death, which includes a coffin. The final element in the procession is a machine designed to destroy the road behind you. So there’s no way of turning back…”
4. A nuptial parade reinterpreted by nasa4nasa
Every day until Sunday, visitors must head to Unlimited at a set time to watch the performance by the Cairo-based collective nasa4nasa. For nearly half an hour, seven women will perform a slow, deliberate dance barefoot and wearing candelabra-like golden headdresses. The tinkling of hanging pendants echoes throughout the space as their bodies move, burdened by the weight of these imposing headpieces. Conceived in 2023 by Noura Seif Hassanein and Salma Abdel Salam, this piece offers an interpretation of the Shamadan, a traditional Egyptian dance often performed at weddings, infusing it with a more contemplative dimension.
Giovanni Carmine: “This is a performance built on balance. At first, you see these seven candelabras on the ground, which the dancers place on their heads before performing a traditional nuptial dance. Their movements are very slow. They get close to one another, align, then misalign… It’s beautiful. These are twenty-eight very intense minutes that must be experienced from start to finish.”
5. Lonnie Holley: a musical tribute to Georgia
Only three video works are featured in this new edition of Unlimited, which strongly emphasizes sculpture. On the right corner of the hall, visitors can discover the first film by Lonnie Holley, a multidisciplinary artist who made a late debut into filmmaking in 2019. Known since the 1980s for his sculptures made from recycled materials, his vivid paintings and, more recently, his music since 2010, the American artist delivers a heartfelt tribute to his Georgian community with this twenty-minute video. Scenes include processions of women leaving a church, fireworks lighting up the sky, nighttime footage of the artist singing outside or creating in his studio. A poetic, spiritual canvas enhanced by his mesmerizing voice.
Giovanni Carmine: “Lonnie is an extraordinary musician. But he also has a substantial sculptural practice and has been deeply involved with his community in Georgia for years. So it was important for both the gallery and the artist to present the wide range of his work to an international audience. It includes the film, of course, but also his suspended metal face sculptures, and the church benches he created… The film is beautiful. Many Unlimited visitors have been very moved by his work. It’s been a wonderful surprise.”
6. Faith Wilding’s ecofeminist composition
As usual, the Unlimited space welcomes bold, often brand-new productions, but also features the (re)discovery of historical artworks that are too large for the small cyma mouldings of the main area. Such is the case with Faith Wilding’s series of paintings from the 1980s. Six watercolor drawings are lined up and topped by six oil paintings on fiberboard panels, forming striking hybrid vegetal species. In the drawings, viewers dive deeper into the world of the Paraguayan-American artist, through organic motifs, soft hues, and mystical symbols. The work evokes both the influence of Hilma af Klint’s abstract compositions and elements of ecofeminist art – a movement with which the 82-year-old painter identifies.
Giovanni Carmine: “This is a very beautiful project that must be seen as a single, unified work. The setup is very precise. The artist even brought the original sketch to ensure the correct spacing between the wood-panel paintings and the works on paper. That’s also the strength of Unlimited. It’s not always easy for artists to find museums with six-meter-high walls. Here, everything perfectly matches the artist’s intended proportions. I installed the work in a little “fantasy nature” corner, next to Danh Vo’s timber sculpture, the new hybrid marble sculptures by Dewar and Gicquel, and that crazy, but extraordinary machine by Arman. It looks like something out of Miyazaki’s universe!”
