Here we are again at Basel Art Fair. We are lucky this time in that we have Art First doyenne Clare Cooper to guide us.

Admiring Donald Judd in the Kunstmuseum

Cheers!

Looking closely at the Ponte Project photograph book

We decide we need a top up on ‘proper art’ and head off to the Kunstmuseum. Their vaults are so large that there is a cornucopia of quality on every visit.

And another Klee, fabulous

Classic Klee

Jean Dubuffet Effigy of a fruit-bearing rock 1958

Stunning Giacometti bronze of his wife Annette in anititpcation of the Beyeler show

Egon Schiele – saw many more at the fAir

Calder suspended on the stairwell in new building

Feeling prepped we head off to the massive halls, where Clare advises us what look out for in the installations.

Clare electing ‘must-see’ exhibits

My highlight is Candice Breitz’s TLDR, 2017, a video installation which portrays a community of sex workers in Cape Town. The first room has a video of a 12 year old boy narrator, accompanied by a Greek chorus of sex workers, telling how Hollywood celebrities and feminist abolitionists crusaded against Amnesty’s campaign for better rights, asking ‘how artists living privileged lives can meaningfully represent  marginalised communities’. Spot on.

Candice Breitz

Other gems were McArthur Binion’s DNA; Subotsky & Waterhouse’s photo montage of the Ponte Tower Project;

Ponte Towers photo

Ponte Towers photo

Ponte Towers photo

Close up of DNA

Ross admiring DNA

More favourites were Lee Ufan’s Relatum (Iron Field); Ana Lupas Christmas trees for the years to come, one of Clare’s must-sees; Lygia Pape’s Tteia,  an intricate installation of golden threads; Jenny Holzer’s hand-carved and engraved benches; and Ai WeiWei of course.

Lygia Pape

Ana Lupas being admired by Clare

Detail from Lygia Pape

Lee Ufan

Ai WeiWei – willow pattern as never before

These exist in amongst less inspirational works, such as Kostis Velonis How to build democracy making rhetorical comments; Paul Chan’s Bathers on Ogygia, 2018;  and Birdman or (the unexpected virtue of ignorance) by Lara Favaretto, featuring piles of coloured confetti, left over from Basel carnival perhaps…and some very iffy video installations, always popular.

So this is what they do with the Fasnacht confetti! Lara Favretti says it ’embodies a ephemeral sense of transience, marked by the flow of time’. Really?

Kostis Velonis illustrating tinpot dictatorships…hmmm

Blow-up models illustrating bathing belles. Weird.

Exhausted by all this, we have a quick break before heading off to the gallery halls. I can only manage one hall so stick to the more conventional area.  Landau Fine Art as ever has an immaculate collection, but there are some gorgeous Baselitz, Leger, German woodcuts, Debuffet again, Miro, Van Dongen.

Baselitz

Miro

German artist Philip Bauknecht

Leger

Van Dongen

German woodcuts

There are some more modern works too, particularly liked Wangechi Mutu’s Dream Catcher, but some absurdities like this pile of vodka bottles.

Simone Leigh’s Edith

Another Simone Leigh bust

Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu

After dinner with ceramicist Lucille Lewin and her husband Rick,

we set of for a Sunday stroll round the reliable Beyeler where there is a Bacon/Giacometti show. I had no idea he and Giacometti had shared a model, the artist Isabel Rawsthorne, so this was a revelation as was Bacon’s earlier work which made him much more accessible to me.

The opening display

The nose and an early Bacon

JB waiting for a clear shot!

Love this of the walking man with his counterpart behind…

Annette

Bacon again

We enjoy the permanent collection before retiring for a lunch in their wonderful gardens.

And a bratwurst

Another beer…

With husband John at the Beyeler

Baffled

From lilies to lily garden

It is enervating to visit the fair, and call me old-fashioned, but I much prefer the nuanced shows in the Beyeler or the Kunstmuseum. Until next year…I leave you with Bacon and Giacometti.

Author: vickyunwin

I am a writer and traveller. Our darling daughter Louise died on 2 March 2011, aged 21 (www.louisecattell.com) and I started writing as therapy. We never know how long we have on this earth, so I live for every day...in November 2013 I was diagnosed and operated on for a malignant soft tissue sarcoma in the calf, followed by 6.5 weeks of radiotherapy, so am embarking on a different kind of journey which you can follow here. I also have another site www.healthylivingwithcancer.co with my blueprint for health and well-being.