8/14/2023 0 Comments Ephemeral art artists![]() ![]() These include a mini sculpture show in the gardens of the private Haus zum Raben, with works by Berlinde De Bruyckere, Thomas Houseago and Wyatt Kahn. More than half of the Parcours works are outside this year, something of an achievement in the event’s relatively small Grossbasel area (south of the Rhine). Untitled (2023) by Kaspar Müller © Courtesy the artist/Société “Müller is playing with the cliché of this epic, historic square with a very fragile and non-commercial work,” he says. Again, potential rainfall is an issue but, Leuenberger says, the works are conceived as ephemeral anyway. “It might look simple just to put a work on a roundabout, but there are lots of local departments involved,” Leuenbeger says.įor the Münsterplatz, the most popular site, an installation of eight supersized straw men by Swiss artist Kaspar Müller is still in production when Leuenberger and I speak a few weeks before the opening. A roundabout on the south side of the Wettsteinbrücke bridge is the site of a 3.6-metre-high mirrored stainless steel peace sign made - again especially for Parcours - by Hank Willis Thomas. The Prouvost is probably not something that people will stumble upon by chance, but plenty of other works are. ‘Duality (Reflection)’ (2022) by Hank Willis Thomas © Hank Willis Thomas. “She originally came with a completely different idea but when she saw the tunnel she was so taken by the bizarre location that she changed her mind,” he says, adding that most artists similarly conduct a site visit to Basel ahead of time. The location is not without risk - “If there’s a lot of rain, then it could get flooded,” Leuenberger says - but this is something Prouvost is comfortable with. The work is flagged at the tunnel’s entrance with a newly made neon of its name visitors need to go down a staircase and walk along the canal to see the film. These include a tunnel with a canal under the prestigious Trois Rois hotel, where French artist Laure Prouvost is staging a video called “No More Front Tears” (2022), a play on the word “frontiers”. The locations have also become more inventive and Leuenberger highlights those that are new this year. ‘Some Munich Moments 1937-1972’ (2022) by Tony Cokes © Courtesy the artist/Kunstverein München/Haus der Kunst/Greene Naftali/Hannah Hoffman/Felix Gaudlitz. ![]() Now the Parcours selection, pitched by exhibitors participating in the fair, numbers many more - there are 24 this year - and the galleries are responsible for producing the works, which are mostly for sale. It is the Swiss curator’s eighth year of running the initiative, which began as an Art Basel-backed project of 10 works in 2010 and has grown into something very different. The title of this year’s event, Word of Mouth, Leuenberger explains, reflects the fact that people might not know the works are there at first, but will be “telling everyone to go and see them by day three”. And you can stumble across them - nobody stumbles into an art fair by accident,” he says. Anybody can go, even the works that are in museums are free to see. “The thing about Parcours is it is absolutely inclusive. It is a sentiment that its curator, Samuel Leuenberger, cannot wholly endorse but with which he feels an affinity. “The street is more important than the museum . . . ” a billboard in Basel declares, part of a work by the artist Tony Cokes in this year’s Parcours, Art Basel’s platform for works of art in public places. ![]()
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