Behlül Kalfa | 15. Juni 2016

Art Basel – Unlimited

Located in Hall 1 North, the great installations at the Art Unlimited are quite overwhelming. It’s not just in the classical context arts or art works to look at, to some extent they are truly an „art theme park“. Unlimited claims to be the pioneering exhibition platform for projects that transcend the classical art-show stand, including massive sculpture and paintings, video projections, large-scale installations, and live performances.

A fascinating Installation like the White Sheets Dance of Ariel Schlesinger chatsches the attention of almost everybody. Moving slow and self-possessed they rise, they fall, jointly impressed. The work is called Two Good Reasons. Definetly a good reason to see!

The round vitrine filled with creatures (or trash), which is called MOU (Museum of Unbelonings) is described as a pact between art and enchantment via the fetish, especially dolls, puppets and marionettes. The artist Mithu Sen’s indulgence, meets here with a quite different form of Wunderkammer aesthetic.

Paul McCarthy’s obviously most important work Tomato Head (Green) from 1994 is also an eye catcher. In his work he creates a life-size Comic figure to explore the relationship between modern culture, consumerism, and innocence. Tomato Head (Green) plays on the name and appearance of the iconic children’s toy Mr. Potato Head.

A black-and-white neoclassical evocation of a private room, a Wunderkammer-like lounge with ist grand piano, art library, and museum drawing room. The Collector’s House is the title of the monumental installation of Hans Op de Beeck. The room looks like as if there was a vulcanic eruption as it was in Pompeii, everything frozen and petrified. A great staging.

With Mimed Sculptures Davide Balula shows a performed presentation of canonical works of sculpture. Above empty pinths of various sizes, a group of mimes white dressed and wearing pink gloves is shaping the air with their hands, rebuilding iconic modernist sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Alberto Giacometti, Eva Hesse, Tony Smith, Barbara Hepworth, David Smith and Henry Moore.

The pioneer of Conceptual art, Sol LeWitt work is a large modular structure made of enamel on steel. The art work of the american artist is from 1999 and is titled Irreggular Tower. The cubic construction, which repeats and brings into order a single unity, follows the principle of geometrical Progression. It is a metal pyramid wherein the cube is the Basic element and puts in Play in all sorts of combinations from the most simple to the most complex.

The perfectly balanced pencil of the artist Steven Pippin is the basis of Pippin’s Ω=1 project. Over the course of 10 years, Pippin has engineered a perfectly balanced standard for 2B pencil. The pencil stands upright on ist own graphite tip, surveyed by two optical sensors. Each sensor Registers the most minuscule change to the movement of the pnecil, relaying the data directly to Motors adjusting its position. The room of the Installation can only be entered by maximum ten people in order to avoid more stress.

Most of the visitors were also wondering why there was a kitchen installation inside the hall. The ideas is based on the Fluxus concerts in the 1960’s across Europe. The events by then were written instructional scores performed by Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, and others assosicated with Fluxus. The ease with which the instructions could be carried out made events ideally suited to the democratizing, anti-war ethos of the period. In New York City Higgins established the Something Else Press. One such Pamphlet, By Alison, released in 1965, included the well-known Proposition #2, which simply instructs to Make A Salad. In this Event, Knowles prepares a massive salad by chopping the ingredients to the beat of live music, mixing flamboyantly by tossing it in the air, then serving the salad to the audience. The events starts at 2pm daily and lasts until the salad is ready to eat. Bon appétit!

Photos by Claudius Krucker | artagenda.com