Spotted at Art Basel 2023. Part 3

The artistic realm convenes in Basel presently. Encounter a curated collection of esteemed artworks showcased at Art Basel 2023 in Basel, accompanied by gallery booths and the pioneering Unlimited sector.

Environnement Chromointerférent by Carlos Cruz-Diez an immersive, participatory environment that reveals the changeable, ambiguous nature of color. The projection, which remains in constant motion, renders both the spectators and objects transparent as they virtually change shape. Viewers take on the dual role of ‘actors’ and ‘authors’ of this chromatic event that unfolds in real space. 

Elias Sime creates large-scale ‘tightropes’ from technological components such as electrical wires, microchips, and computer hardware, as a reference to the tenuous balance between technology and human interaction. Tightrope 4 was a cornerstone work in the very first exhibition of Sime’s Tightrope series, heralding the artist’s singular adeptness at handling the technological material that has become his signature.

For 10 years, Christian Marclay collected film clips in which a door opens or closes. He edited these sequences so that we see the actors walking through the door to enter another space. Virtuoso montage suggests a labyrinthine wandering, a space in which the characters get lost and find themselves again, echoing the movements of the visitors in the exhibition.

Robert Irwin’s entrancing and enigmatic disc paintings from the late 1960s appear to hover off the wall, projecting patterned shadows that extend into space. This series represents the culmination of a period of gradual philosophical evolution for the Light and Space movement artist. Producing kaleidoscopic, clover-shaped patterns, these works are engaged with the artist’s lifelong investigations of perception, experience, and subjectivity.

This installation is a system of notation developed by Bronwyn Katz to signify the phonetics of an imagined creole language. Titled /xabi, it comprises sound, letters materialized through steel and rock, and her ‘curtains of rain’ made of copper. The work refers to the forms of the Driekopseiland - a rock engraving site located on the Gama-lab River in the Northern Cape of South Africa - whose petroglyphs are covered during the rainy season and exposed during drought.