The Basel edition of Art Basel brings the international art world together this week. It features over 200 leading galleries and more than 4,000 artists from five continents. It’s the first Art Basel without masks, without restrictions. There was a buzz, which we’ve only known from pre-pandemic times.
And so the fair started with a record sale in Louise Bourgeois’ history: on preview day 1 gallery Hauser & Wirthsold the French-American artist’s larger than life iconic steel Spider, 1996for 40 million USD.
“As the most iconic and rare work of Louise Bourgeois’ entire oeuvre, the 1996 steel ‘Spider’ seemed the ideal work to anchor our booth at this year’s fair — a celebration of both Art Basel’s post-pandemic ‘grand retour’ and Hauser & Wirth’s 30th anniversary. Louise embodied, in so many ways, our gallery’s vision and ethos. She spanned the 20th and 21st centuries, possessed a fiercely independent spirit in her life and work that defied simple categorization, and she changed the game not only for women artists but for art itself. She continues to exert enormous influence in the most positive way, and we felt this was an important moment to spotlight that power.” says Marc Payot, President, Hauser & Wirth.
Here are more highlights from the preview days of Art Basel, which has opened its doors to the public today:
Jaume Plensa, Cristina’s Words
Barcelona born and based artist Jaume Plensa (1955) is one of my favorite contemporary artists who knows how to translate meditation and meaning into art works. The Spanish artist’s recent work Cristina’s Words, 2021 is being represented by Galerie Lelong at Art Basel 2022.
Jaume Plensa, Cristina’s Words, 2021
Nel-Olivia Waga
The larger than life sculpture surprises from each angle.
Jaume Plensa, Cristina’s Words, 2021 at Art Basel 2022
Nel-Olivia Waga
Alberto Giacometti, Figurine
Swiss sculptor (1901-1966) Alberto Giacometti is a name that needs no introduction in the art world. This year a miniature version of his famous sculptures, Figurine is being exhibited by Gallery Kamel Mennour.
Alberto Giacometti, Figurine, Bronze, 10.7 x 3.4 x 4.2 cm, Edition 2 of 8, Fonte L. Thinot 1969
Nel-Olivia Waga
Yoshitomo Nara, Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!
Contemporary Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s signature style is to express children in a range of emotional complexities from resistance and rebellion to quietude and contemplation. He celebrates the introspective freedom of the imagination and the individual.
Yoshitomo Nara, Hey! Ho! Let’s Go! 2011
Nel-Olivia Waga
Sylvie Fleury, UBS Lounge
At the UBS VIP Lounge, which puts extra focus on sustainability and all things healthy this year (locally sourced ingredients of the lunch menu, relaxation lounges and fresh juice bar), the UBS Art Collection is showcasing a solo presentation dedicated to Geneva-based artist Sylvie Fleury, best known for fusing high art with popular culture, exploring gender codes around consumerism, power and desire. Fleury is considered one of Switzerland’s most important living artists and has been the subject of major museum exhibitions around the world.
Sylvie Fleury, UBS Lounge at Art Basel 2022
Nel-Olivia Waga
Von Bartha Gallery, Booth G12
At the centre of the Basel art scene is gallery von Bartha, whose cool flagship space is housed in a former garage behind a working petrol pump station. Directed by Stefan von Bartha, the gallery presents a cutting-edge contemporary programme representing an international roster of artists. Having exhibited with Art Basel since the first edition in 1970 – at this year’s fair, they are showcasing Imi Knoebel, Superflex, and Bernar Vernet alongside Barry Flanagan, Olaf Breuning, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp encouraging a dialogue between sculpture and painting.
Installation View Gallery Von Bartha, Booth G12
Von Martha
33Eko at Tezos
NFTs are here to stay. Blockchains such as the most sustainable of them all, Tezos, are helping re-imagine the digital canvas for generative artists. As with technology, art is in a constant state of evolution. Tezos’ Art Basel exhibition explores the evolutionary intersection between art and technology, where artists are reimagining what generative art could be in this new medium.
Tezos Lounge at Art Basel 2022
Tezos
The interactive experience lets visitors explore the NFT world and beyond. They can even co-create a new generative artwork that is automatically minted as an NFT and gifted to the attendees in real-time. The installation features generative algorithms from Aleksandra Jovanić, Ryan Bell, Sam Tsao and my favorite NFT artist: Eko33.
Eko33 at Tezos Lounge Art Basel 2022
Nel-Olivia Waga
Since 1999 the French Eko33 Art Studio, now based in Switzerland, has been creating generative art based on crypto hash seeds. Maximizing algorithmic diversity. His works are being presented in global art fairs, museums, biennales – and “somewhere in the Metaverse”. Eko33 is also the host of the popular NFT world podcast “Probably nothing”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
