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I In a piece, the Japanese art doyenne Yoko Ono – the widow of the musician John Lennon – has arranged small pieces of broken cups and invites visitors to "repair" them with ropes, glue and tape. There are no rules for putting the pieces together – she only asks that you do it with "love and kindness," says her guardian who is there for Ono.
The installation of Yoko Ono invites foreigners to repair broken cups. "There is so much suffering and suffering in the world," says the caretaker, "that the artist wants us to create a new art from broken objects – that's what it's all about." Art for a broken world. "
Indeed, "art for a broken world" could be one of the themes of the Swiss Art Basel, the largest art fair in the world and the original behemoth which gave birth to two sister events: Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Basel Miami. Less than a year after the election of Donald Trump in the United States, artists and gallerists reacted to the new and unpredictable world order by creating and exhibiting works of art who try or heal the new fractures that his presidency has caused. [19659004] In a popular corner of the fair, artist Paul Ramirez Jonas performs his certified public notary role – someone appointed by the US government to serve as a public witness to the signing of important documents. It invites visitors to imagine a lie – any lie. He then writes it on a piece of paper, stamps it with the help of an authentic public seal and a stamp, then sticks the lie on the wall as proof of A "truthful" document.
At Paul Ramirez's Jonas truth "installation, visitors concoct lies that are legally authenticated as truths by a certified notary public."
The lies that visitors have found with insolence include "Life is Righteous", " Your privacy is safe, "" I love Trump "," Facebook saves democracy "and" I'm a size zero "- and have now become legally authenticated public documents because Ramirez Jonas has received training and certification for its role as public notary.
serves as a commentary on our post-truth world where powerful leaders choose to discredit disturbing truths as "false news" while emphasizing their own interpretations of the facts and history
Other artists meddling in political affairs Thai superstar Rirkrit Tiravanija, his video work described t more tires on fire as a direct reminder of the protesters clash of Bangkok 2010 when the tires were used as barricades and Molotov cocktails were thrown away.
The burning tires of Rirkrit Tiravanija refer to the protest of Bangkok 2010 when the tires were used as barricades. Meanwhile, the Chinese artist He Xiangyu created a large box of pure gold eggs and filled it with a single egg as a metaphor for the social and economic consequences of the single child policy in China. And the Greek artist Kostis Velonis has built a huge agitprop kiosk in response to what he calls a "crisis of democracy" around the world.
If artists express their concerns about an increasingly fragmented global political system, Art Basel expresses it for small and medium-sized galleries everywhere. Faced with overwhelming overhead, rising rents and sluggish business, many small and medium-sized galleries have closed in recent years, even though their well-known counterparts are doing better than ever before with their affluent customers.
Galleries are a crucial part of the ecology of art as they feed new and emerging artists that large galleries often do not touch. Unfortunately, when some of these young artists become established names, they can turn to a larger gallery that gives them access to collectors and more influential institutions.
Fairs like Art Basel exacerbate part of the problem. show a preference for buying art at such events instead of galleries; Art fairs offer larger and more varied art exhibits than any gallery. However, it is often an expensive affair that small galleries can afford. Rents from kiosks can reach up to US $ 100,000, while the cost of shipping works of art, insurance and hospitality dinners for collectors may exceed this figure
. At a press conference before the fair, Art Basel Global Director Marc Spiegler acknowledged the problem as urgent but could offer little comfort. He says, "The galleries talk more openly than ever about their struggles, and we all think about how we can meet the challenges they face … What Art Basel can do for these small and medium galleries, it's to make available the same platform, collectors and programs that we do for large galleries. And when it comes to strategically deploying our VIP networks or how we use social networks, we favor galleries that need our help the most.
Emi Eu, director of STPI Gallery in Singapore, says the problem needs to be solved: "When your gallery becomes Art Basel, which is the cream of the crop, it's an affirmation for the gallery and The Basel brand is so strong that even your artists and collectors start to see you differently. "But at the same time, the art fair is very expensive and few galleries can participate. That's the chicken and the egg – you have to spend money to make yourself visible to the best collectors, but it's money that you do not have. maybe not.
"As for the difference in richness between galleries and small galleries, question for six to seven years now, larger galleries are spreading in different countries and attracting the best local artists to work with them. something that local art systems need to consider in order to better retain their local talents. "
ShanghArt's Lilian Wu is more intractable about the situation, saying," Every gallerist must find his way to survive.
The sculpture of Alexander Calder (foreground) and the paintings of Pablo Picasso (background) are among the thousands of top-notch works of art on sale at Art Basel.
ShanghArt, a large gallery with branches in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, posted strong sales compared to most of the smaller galleries of the fair. The works of his popular artists, such as Yu Youhan and Ding Yi, were reserved by collectors even before the opening of the fair.
Among the other Asian artists and galleries that worked well, Beijing's Long March Space sold 5 meters by 9 meters for $ 1.73 million. Lisson Gallery (London, New York) sold Ai Weiwei's Coca-Cola vase (a centennial vase from the Han dynasty on which he painted the Coca-Cola panel) for 280,000 euros ($ 437,258 CAN) ).
Blum & Poe (Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo) sold a $ 550,000 Yoshitomo Nara ceramic sculpture and a $ 200,000 Ha Chong-hyun oil, while the Seoul Kukje Gallery sold also an oil of Ha Chong-hyun at the same price.
Pace, which has branches in six international cities, sold an acrylic painting on canvas by Lee Ufan for US $ 350,000
Amid the galleries of small and medium galleries, a welcome development is the improvement the diversity of artists. being represented by the largest galleries. Important artists who have long been critically or commercially neglected because of their gender, race or sexual orientation find their place on the walls.
In the Unlimited section, popular for its museum-scale installations, many of the featured artists are from African Heritage such as Yto Barrada, Rashid Johnson, Ibrahim Mahama, Barthelemy Toguo, Martine Syms and Sam Gilliam. Gilliam, an 84-year-old African-American artist whose works have long been underestimated despite their criticality, presented a solo exhibition at the renowned Kunstmuseum in Basel.
The works of the African-American artist Sam Gilliam Art Basel Unlimited as well as the Kunstmuseum Basel. The art world increasingly recognizes artists long ignored because of their race, gender or sexual orientation.
Artists from Southeast Asia are unfortunately under-represented at Art Basel. STPI is the only gallery of Southeast Asia among the 290 best galleries of 35 countries at the fair. Despite the works of Jane Lee and Suzann Victor, Singaporean artists, Dinh Q Le, American-Vietnamese artist, American artist Pae White and Albanian artist Anri Sala, the director of STPI Eu said that sales have been "slow" the first two days.
STPI Singapore is the only gallery in Southeast Asia to be admitted to the first fair with 290 leading galleries. The STPI team includes (from left to right) Karin van den Boom, Emi Eu, Ng Wei Lin and Rita Targui.
Gianni Jetzer, curator of the Unlimited sector, is delighted at a time when the art world is welcoming more diversity: "The world is becoming more and more global and the world of music is growing. art begins to recognize the rich contributions of artists from different regions, especially from the African region … In the end, I believe – or I want to believe – that the artistic system is democratic, open "
(RELATED: This couple of billionaires has started the Dhaka Art Summit to bring Bangladesh to the international art scene)
The Unlimited sector, dedicated to art and culture .scale museum facilities, provides some of the most memorable sites of the fair
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