La grossesse étrange de la rencontre étrange

Yesterday I’ve spent a wonderful afternoon at the Art 42 Basel - the world's largest  international art show for Modern and contemporary works, held every summer in lively Basel. The day was unusually cold and windy that I wished for a moment we were at Art Basel Miami Beach, the sister event of Switzerland's Art Basel, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas.  :-)

Art Basel features nearly 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. More than 2,500 artists, ranging from the great masters of Modern art to the latest generation of emerging stars, are represented in the show's multiple sections.

 

The journey  started with the second floor, where most of the young artists and contemporary art was presented... Just like the last year, my emotions were dubious: reactions went from “WTF?...” to pure awe. I should have been writing down names of the favourite pieces, but of course I didn’t; so I have to browse the whole Art 42 Basel online catalogue in a hope to recover some of the impressions...

 Joe Bradley. Untitled (Freak)

Max-Walter Svanberg
La grossesse étrange de la rencontre étrange, 1953
Watercolor on paper

 

I spent quite some time in front of the works of Atul  Dodiya, attracted by the contrast between soft palette, gentleness of lines, graphic details and somewhat unromantic titles... they were my 2nd floor favorites, I think... The works have been presented by Nature Mort Gallery, New Delhi.

It was time for a break, and a glass of champagne with a piece of homemade apricot pie... Ahhhh, the ability to absorb beauty returned, and it was nothing less than beauty awaiting for us on the first floor: I wanted to dissolve in perfectly lit works of Botero, Miro, Picasso, Kandinsky ...

Sensual sculptures of Barbara Hepworth, a student and lifelong friend of Henry Moore were the biggest discovery of the day.

Hepworth , Barbara

Hollow Form with White Interior Opus (328) (1963)

Nigerian guarea wood on original wooden plinth

41 x 31 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches; 104.1 x 80 x 37 cm

I sure did miss a lot of genius stuff, it is simply impossible to see creations of 2,500 artists in a few short hours. But there will be Art 43 Basel next June, perhaps we meet there?..

Love,

AB

The Adding Machine

As a bank clerk in Auburn, New York, William Seward Burroughs (1857-1898) became convinced that banks needed a machine that would add figures accurately and print entries and sums. He went to St. Louis, took a job in a machine shop, and began tinkering. By 1891, he had several patents and an adding machine sufficiently reliable for use in banks. It was sold by a firm called American Arithmometer Company, later renamed Burroughs.

 The photograph above shows the first model sold by the American Arithmometer Company. It measures 8 cm. x 38 cm. x 32 cm. 

The photograph below shows a true-to-scale copy of an archaeological stone sculpture from Teotihuacan, Mexico, depicting a jaguar. It is an opening exhibit of the exposition "The adding machine" by Mai-Thu Perret which takes place at the Aargauer Kunsthaus.  

Mai-Thu Perret, The Adding Machine, 2011, polyurethane foam, 103 x 243 x 87 cm

Arriving 15 minutes late to the Aargauer Kunsthaus I barely catch the beginning of the Artist’s talk with Mai-Thu Perret and Madeleine Schuppli, Director and Curator of the Aargauer Kunsthaus.

Everything about Mai-Thu is surprising and refreshing: the contrast between her full feminine red lips and her childlike sandals, her fragile figure and a speed of a machine gun with which she answers questions....answers them with irony and almost shocking directness. 

 Image from www.vogue.it

I am irritated with not seeing the exhibits beforehand to be able to understand what the artist refers to. She speaks of references, which is honest and fresh, since most of us want to be inventors and not interpreters... even the name for the show she chooses, referring to the “cut-up ” technique of American writer Willian S. Burroughs, the great grandson of the inventor of the adding machine (I think...)   

In the last few years Mai-Thu Perret (born 1976) has drawn considerable attention in Europe an the US for her multidisciplinary artistic work, which includes sculprures, painting, installation, video and text-based pieces. 

Little Planetary Harmony, 2006, wood slices, hammered aluminium, aluminium colored acrylic paint, foam, plaster, 353 x 665.5 x 365.7 cm

Mai-Thu Perret, Untitled, 2010, Acryl auf Holz, 60.6 x 45 cm

Untitled, 2009, acrylic gouache on plywood, 24.7 x 19.7 cm

Show "The Adding Machine" stays with the Aargauer Kunsthaus until 31.07.2011 and then goes on view in modified form at the MAGASIN - Centre national d'Art Contemporain in Grenoble, France, in the fall 2011. 

Love,

AB