Subodh Gupta’s Cooking the World – fabulous pots and pans installation – you could even have a meal inside!
From Czechia to Basel to catch the world’s largest Art Fair. Cousins Diego and Christine come for the weekend, and I find them on Friday night, sipping wine with Ross on the banks of the Rhine.
We spend two days, mostly at the main exhibition hall. Hall 1 has some huge installations and is definitely for the avant grade – not too sure how much tickles my fancy there. In fact it is a bit of a chizz as many of these works are old and have been shown elsewhere – Venice Biennale for example. Having said that two of the films were extraordinary: John Akomfrah’s lament for Greece portrayed in surreal scenes filmed at an abandoned airport was moving and visually stunning; and Korean Park Chan-Kyong’s recreation of a mythical ceremony was nothing short of mesmerising. Likewise Mickalene Thomas’s Do I Look Like A Lady? film montage of powerful Black comedians and singers, starring Eartha Kitt, was uplifting.
Really not sure about this – more like something I would see when diving. It’s not catalogued under any of the normal headings – sculpture, installation, other materials, mixed media so what is it? Who is the artist? Prizes given…
I liked this Barbara Kruger in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire
Peter Regli’s phallic installation was impressive…
Sue Williamson’s extraordinary bottle water feature – there were five of these in the installation.
Hall 2 hosts the galleries, and here in my opinion are some gems, mostly by established artists. It’s our wedding anniversary and I quite fancy the most exquisite Chagall I’ve ever seen. Cheered to see several Baselitz (we own a striking upside-down red head).
My Chagall please if you’ve got many millions…
We wander round the parcours in the Munster Platz, again a bit hit and miss. I find the descriptions of much of the work obtuse, and almost meaningless as a result – maybe because its translated from German. Check the caption to the photo of Christine walking on Massimo Bartolini’s road.
Ai Wei Wei sculpture in front of the cathedral
Buying rare whisky seems a good alternative after a hard day’s walking.
or meeting new friends…
As its our wedding anniversary (thinkI tilde you already! 34 years!) we have some celebrating to do…
We really loved the exhibition of Cezanne’s hidden sketches at the Kunst museum, which owns the largest collection of his sketchbooks. They were split up by his son and sold on his death. Here they have reassembled a meaningful selection and we see how they inform his later pictures, for instance the bather series, which he did not draw from life but from memory of all those mornings spent in Le Louvre sketching the sculptures.
A great weekend, and a lesson on contemporary art….and my legs/hip have finally had enough after a week of limping round Europe
A fun exhibition of Robert Pruitt’s celebrity lookalikes – Gilbert & George and ???
vickygoestravelling 