Kostis Velonis, How to build democracy making rhetorical comments (after Klucis' design for propaganda kiosk, screen and loudspeaker platform, 1922), 2009
6.60 m x 4.50 m x 7.76 m
6.60 m x 4.50 m x 7.76 m
This year’s edition of Unlimited will consist of 71 large-scale projects, presented by galleries participating in the fair.
Curated for the seventh consecutive year by Gianni Jetzer, Curator-at-Large at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the sector will feature a wide range of presentations, from seminal pieces from the past to work created especially for Art Basel. Renowned as well as emerging artists will participate, including: Matthew Barney, Yto Barrada, Daniel Buren, Horia Damian, Camille Henrot, Jenny Holzer, Mark Leckey, Lee Ufan, Inge Mahn, Lygia Pape, Jon Rafman, Michael Rakowitz, Nedko Solakov, Martine Syms, Barthélémy Toguo and Yu Hong. Art Basel, whose Lead Partner is UBS, takes place at Messe Basel from June 14 to June 17, 2018.
Unlimited, Art Basel’s unique platform for large-scale projects, provides galleries with the opportunity to showcase installations, monumental sculptures, video projections, wall paintings, photographic series and performance art that transcend the traditional art-fair stand. For Unlimited in 2007, Daniel Buren transformed the escalators leading to the upper floor of Hall 1 into a kinetic sculpture titled ‘Passage de la Couleur, 26 secondes et 14 centièmes’. The work was bought by Messe Schweiz and today forms an integral part of the exhibition hall. With Unlimited this year taking place on the upper floor of Hall 1, Buren’s work from 2007 will form part of the entrance area for this year’s edition. Responding to this earlier work, Unlimited will open with Buren’s ‘Una cosa tira l’altra’, an aerial walkway decorated with stripes similar to those that have been used on the escalator in 2007. The extensive platform made up of scaffolding will create new ways to navigate the space, allowing visitors to view the surrounding works from unique and unexpected points of view.
Further highlights include Polly Apfelbaum’s strips of textile that are combined to form a colorfully woven painting; Rashid Johnson’s tropical enclave containing various unexpected elements from sculptures made with shea butter to video portraits; Katherine Bernhardt’s monumental painting with tropical birds, cuddly robots and cigarette stubs, which at once editorializes and summarizes modern culture and the artist herself; an interactive multimedia installation by Nedko Solakov comprising nine sofas in the shapes of the nine Chinese characters constituting the phrase ‘I miss Socialism, maybe’; and Yu Hong’s large-scale painting depicting a famous Chinese fable widely cited in both modern Chinese art history and Chinese Communist narratives. The work focuses on how the Socialist narrative still perseveres in Chinese society and explores the ways its ideology corresponds to the visual legacy of Soviet Socialist Realist heritage.
Full list of artists presented in Unlimited: