Art Statements is a specialised sector of Art Basel that features solo exhibitions of emerging artists from different countries. 27 artists and their respective galleries have been selected this year out of over 300 applications worldwide.

Before at we get excited, there was no Australian artist or gallery at Art Statements this year. Out of the 27 chosen, only 13 different countries were represented, with 80% of this pool from UK, US and Europe. The remaining 20% (or 6 participants) are 2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from South Africa, 1 from India and 1 from South America. Still, this appears to be an improvement from previous years. According to my research from patchy information found on the net, the proportion of UK, US and European galleries used to be a lot higher. I couldn’t find any historical information on Art Statements before 2008, but simply Googling “Art Statements Art Basel Australia” it seems that our great land downunder has barely been featured in this sector over the 10 years that this has been running. This is something that needs to change.

To be featured in Art Statements is certainly excellent international exposure for an emerging artist, being attached to a significant art fair and in the spotlight of the world’s top collectors, critics, museum directors who attend each year. Some major solo exhibitions have been offered to artists as an outcome and it is without doubt a great career launchpad. Artists that have been discovered at Art Statements in the past include Vanessa Beecroft, Elizabeth Peyton and Kara Walker. And if you recall my post about Simon Fujiwara’s installation at the Singapore Biennale, well that installation was at Art Statements the year before. Fujiwara also won the Baloise Art Prize with this work, a prize that is awarded to the two best exhibitions at Art Statements.

The Baloise Art Prize this year has been awarded to Ben Rivers from the UK and Alejandro Cesarco from Uruguay. The winners get CHF 30,000 each, their work acquired by Baloise and donated to important museums in Europe. What an amazing opportunity.

Below are photos that I took of each stand at Art Statements, in order.

I personally found the selection of work here quite uninspiring overall. I strongly believe that art, no matter its context or concept, should be able to stand on its own two feet in a way that the viewer is able to connect heart, mind or soul to the work simply from engaging with it. The ideas and concepts behind some of the art here were either too insipid for my taste or so removed from the work themselves that they weren’t saying much to me at all.

I did like some of it however. Ben Rivers and Alexandre Singh get my thumbs up. I also didn’t mind Kaari Upson, Alex Hubbard and Alejandro Cesarco. Hah, look at it me, I sound like I am some kind of all high and mighty art critic.

I really loved Ben Rivers’ work, Sack Barrow (2011), an extremely poetic and beautiful 16mm film that runs for about 20 minutes on a day in the life of a very old and very used electro-plating factory in London. A small handful of workers, perhaps only four, slowly and diligently go about their day job in this obsolete industrial world. This obsoleteness is very effectively communicated in the film (which itself is made using obsolete technology) in that we never really know what these workers are actually doing. They don’t seem to be making anything that is of any use or resemblance to things we have seen. As a result, we are left with much confusion as we play voyeurs to this very estranged world with a child-like sense of wonder, something that Rivers excellently conjures. An eloquent portrait of a vanishing age, I watched the film three times in a row, each time discovering something more. A mark of a good work of art.

Alexandre Singh’s work was very clever. An object is placed on each of three plinths that also functioned as speakers. The work is called Dialogue of the Objects I-V and it is simply that – inanimate objects sitting on the plinths ‘talking’ to each other, their voices played from the speakers directly underneath them. Installed in a pitch black room, a spotlight shines on the objects as they ‘speak’. Here the roles of the artwork and the spectator are reversed. Full of character, the objects are no longer submissive and instead we hear them eloquently discussing and giving judgement on the world of human beings. Five different dialogues occur between sets of three different objects. Apple, Hammer and Feather argue about Apple’s superiority over Hammer over the course of history, including Newton’s discovery of gravity; Quill, Helium Balloon and Gallery Guide discuss Quill’s amazing literary skills of which he willingly demonstrates; Wine Glass 1, Wine Glass 2 and Radio discuss taste and judgement; and so on and so forth. Extremely witty, naive yet intelligent, we get a glimpse into the psyches of objects. Despite being completed fictional, the objects are so incredibly charming that we want to believe that what we were seeing was true. Other objects include cigarette packets, an ashtray, an hourglass, a box of matches, a necklace and a TomTom GPS device.

Apart from these small handful of works, I didn’t leave Art Statements feeling too upbeat. I probably had really high expectations though. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the kind of art that ‘made it’ out of the alleged 300 applications from around the world. Maybe I am missing something, but I have certainly seen better emerging art in Australia, and even at the VCA. I can only hope that Australia will show up on the Art Statements map in the coming years and give these other guys a good run for their money.

Art Parcours might just be my favourite event here at Art Basel. 10 renowned international artists transform 10 locations in the beautiful and lush St. Alban-Tal area along the Rhine in Basel with site-specific artworks.

A few tram stops from the fair proper, St. Alban-Tal is one of the most historical areas of Basel. Narrow cobblestone alleyways and streams run through this medieval quarter of the city. Walking around the area makes me feel like I am in a different time and place, and I think that is what made Art Parcours so magical for me.

The venues that the artists have transformed include fishing huts, a cargo ship, the old city wall, the Haus Zum Hohen Dolder, the St. Alban church, and the incredible Brunnenwer St. Alban, this underground water reservoir from the medieval times.

Art Parcours is one of the few events here at Art Basel that is free to the public (the other is Art Basel Conversations). On Thursday night, they held various concerts and performances along the river bank. Music and relaxed vibes were in the air. Almost everyone there had just spent the day at the fair and were winding down watching the stunning sunset along the Rhine. It had been raining very heavily just a couple of hours before and so the crowd was thinner than expected. Still, it didn’t stop Art Basel co-director, Marc Spiegler, who I spotted hanging out at the cargo ship jetty.

Below are photos of the cargo ship from Thursday night, of which artist Chris Johanson (whose work features on the ship) hijacked with his band, playing a bunch of minimal songs with various instruments, mainly the electric guitar.

Below is also a shot from Thursday night of one of Federico Herrero’s fishing huts of which he has completely painted the exteriors of. He takes his patterns from his homeland in Costa Rica, adding a tropical flair to one of the most unlikeliest of locations. Underneath this photo are shots taken from the day time.

One of my favourite works has got to be by artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, who has created an installation inside an underground old water reservoir that would normally be shut off from the public.

The entrance to the reservoir is quite conspicious. You push through some wooden doors and descend a staircase. It is very dark in there, almost pitch black as your eyes attempt to adjust from the sunny outside. If it weren’t for people being in front of me, I might have just been too scared to keep going. And look at that photo below, if some four-year old could do it then, hell, so could I.

After going several steps down this dark dungeon-like cave, you eventually descend into a small humid and darkly lit room. There are sounds of running and dripping water. Right in the middle of the room is… a hawaiian tiki hut. Tropical music is also playing. I nearly shat myself laughing.

So, I have walked into the Blue Hawaii Bar, in the most random of places. The location is a medieval vaulted water reservoir that belongs to an ancient system of water connections under the city of Basel. Look at the photo below of one of the water ways that lead into this reservoir. It is just incredible.

The barmen standing atop more underground waterways.

This dislocated scene of a tropical bar inside a medieval water reservoir in the heart of Switzerland’s cultural capital is a metaphor for the ever expanding market for tourism and leisure within the context of the consumption of art.

Below are shots taken from Chris Johanson’s cargo ship during the day.

Below is the ambitious work of Ai Wei Wei, presented along the remains of the old Basel city wall. Ai Wei Wei’s presence here at Art Basel has been incredible despite the fact that he’s been missing since April. This installation was a very sobering experience for everyone who knows of Ai’s current fate. I am very glad that the organisers did this because it provides a strong message that the art world is capable of working together to continue spreading the artist’s message and legacy no matter how much the Chinese Government tries to stop him. To read the latest updates on Ai Wei Wei’s situation, visit Free Ai Wei Wei.

I found this banner behind the city wall.

Walking away from the city wall, you encounter some very medieval things. Look at this painting on the wall of one of the buildings in the photo below. I had no idea what it was at the time, but the fact that the man is holding his head in his hands was so bizarre and intriguing. The text gives us evidence that this is Saint Alban. I googled Saint Alban and accurately enough, Saint Alban was a pagan who was decapitated because he had converted to Christianity.

Walking further along you get to the St. Alban church, another site of Art Parcours. The church was built in the 13th century, formerly a Benedictine cloister, and now a Serbian orthodox church. Here, Kris Martin has done quite an unconventional but beautiful installation… see the photos below. Pay attention to the floor.

With this installation, Kris has covered the entire church floor with tiny bronze discs that look like confetti. Since the fair has now been opened for several days, the discs are everwhere. As the text accompanying this work explains, “As visitors walk over the shiny debris it will get progressively pushed outside, ultimately reminding us of our transient condition.” And transient it was. I found discs hundreds of meters away from this church! I also spotted quite a few outside the Kunstmuseum, all the way up the hill.

There are other works at Art Parcours but these were some highlights. I think Art Parcours is such a great addition to the fair. It is more biennial-like in nature than fair-like. Art Basel, with Art Parcours and the other various programs like Art Basel Conversations, Art Salon and Art Weekend, really does shift some of the emphasis away from the very commercial aspects of an art fair.

Anyway back to the topic at hand, Susan Phillipsz is a Turner Prize winner and made Two Sisters for Ellen de Bruijne Projects in Amsterdam back in 2009. It consists of a two channel sound installation with voice and a part with surround sound with violins. The story of Two Sisters tells the story of two siblings who fell in love with the same man with tragic results, touching on themes of repetition, loss and memory.

The voice part is of the centuries old ballad called The Wind and the Rain. The ballad is about one sister drowning the other in jealous rage as a result of the love triangle. The river carries the dead sister’s drowned body until a fiddler comes across her remains. Her bones and hair are made into a fiddle, but the fiddle can only play one song, The Wind and the Rain. Many versions of this ballad exist but the key story remains the same.

Phillipsz’ sound installation plays two versions of the song from two separate speakers simultaneously. One version is sung in third person and the other in first person, taking on the role of the drowned sister. Some of the lines are identical, so even if the two versions muddle at some sections of the song, they come back together perfectly for those identical lines. Quite creepy. While these voice parts are playing, a violin accompanies the background.

This is very David Walsh, I think. The work being comprised of only speakers and nothing visual has so many possibilities for its installation. I am interested to see how this will be presented at MONA, and from what I have seen so far I don’t think I will be disappointed!

Art Basel has this thing called Art Feature, which is a section at the fair that spotlights special art projects in stands alongside all the other gallery booths. There are 20 of them on both floors in Hall 2 and represent a range of artistic approaches.

One of them is Rirkrit Tiravanija‘s project. Those of you who are familiar with the artist would know that he often works in relational aesthetics, cooking food for his audience, inviting engagement to take place between people. For the project at Art Basel he has made us a big pot of curry served with rice in paper bowls. It was delicious.

However, cooking food is not the only participatory part of his work this time around. On the walls around the stand are charcoal drawings of various scenes from the political uprisings in the Middle East. The audience is invited to add their bit to the wall drawing, either by drawing from found images or adding their own. I picked up a conte stick and drew an Egyptian man in protest.

My drawing.

Me with my grubby charcoal fingers.

Whilst making my drawing from a small photograph, something quite powerful happened which I had not expected. Drawing the man’s face, the contours, his eyes, nose, mouth, then his hands, his clothes, his protest sign, and a symbol of freedom of speech, the microphone, created a connection far greater than anything I had seen or read in the news about the events and issues concerning the Middle East. When you draw someone, you notice every detail about them because you have to. And once you’re done you almost feel like you’ve gotten to know them a bit better, and in quite an intimate way. You don’t just draw their face, you also draw a part of their soul. Outside of this I wouldn’t have ever thought of drawing images from these events.

Here are more photos of the wall drawings that others have done:

After spending about 20 mins finishing my drawing, it was time to eat curry!

The whole experience, contributing to this great wall drawing and feeling connected not just with the many strangers who I ate communal curry with but also the man I drew, was quite incredible. There are no boundaries with art, and I am so glad that Art Basel has selected Rirkrit to do such a project here at an event that is so much about commerciality. You can’t hang this on a wall.

Thanks for a great lunch, Rirkrit and the wonderful team at 100 Tonson!

(Alison, I ate some curry for you too – I know how much you like Rirkrit! Wish you were here!)

I am not writing things in order here because my days are completely filled to the brim, and so whatever I feel like writing about I will. There is SO much to do here in Basel for art fair week that it might just be possible that I will get sick of looking at art even before getting to the Venice Biennale. Hmm… doubt it!

Yesterday I made it out to both VOLTA and LISTE, two of the many other satellite fairs that are occuring this week alongside Art Basel. This post is going to be a quick one on LISTE. LISTE is a dedicated art fair for galleries no more than 5 years old and artists under 40. It claims to be one of the most important art fairs for the discovery of young art.

My visit to LISTE was rushed but I did manage to work my way around all the galleries. I wished I had more time to spend there, but I have learnt that if I did, I could be there all day and I just didn’t have the time. The art was generally pretty good. Some very outstanding work, some not so much. Such a mixture of quality is something you would expect from a fair such as this. Although there were a few clever things, nothing really screamed out to me that was very exciting or different. Maybe it is because it is a fair after all, where things tend to get a bit more commercial.

What fascinated me the most at Liste was not so much the art, but the building it was in and the way the galleries occupied the space. In stark contrast to the clean white walls of Art Basel, Liste is in an old brewery and as you can see from the photos below, it is an amazing space! Galleries occupied every nook and cranny of the building, working with its odd spaces and left over equipment. There was also random things in the toilets such as buckets of cabbage, and random art posters stuck near the ceilings. The whole place, in my mind, was a work of art. I could not think of a better location to host a young art fair.

Despite the place being aesthetically informal (labels for art were often written by hand on a sticker or directly on the walls), I found the gallery staff just as haughty as some over here at Art Basel. Okay, that was a bit of a generalisation – there was a sprinkling of down to earth, friendly ones. But compared to Volta, which I will post about at a later time, the people at Liste seemed to be rather self-important. The art world is generally very elitist afterall and so I guess this comes as no surprise, but that is what peeves me. You don’t have to be a snob to be elitist. And no, that is not a paradox.

Ok, rant over. I will now leave you with some more photos from the fair. I am at Art Basel right now and just about to head down to the exhibition hall to check out more of the art before heading to Tonson Gallery’s booth for Rikrit Tiravanija’s installation at noon – he is cooking us chicken curry today!

Do you remember this photo I posted a couple of days ago? Well, this Warhol sold for $80 million. *rubs eyes*. Unfortunately for the keen buyer, the consigner pulled the pin in the last minutes of the sale, deciding that this was not the time to sell it. $80 million. (Edit on 17 June: Just thought I would add context to this… the most expensive Warhol sold was “Eight Elvises” for 100 million, followed second by “Turquoise Marilyn” at 80 million. The painting as of Thursday of the fair remained unsold.)

Despite this, this is evidence that the art buying frenzy of pre-2008 days are well and truly back again. Works sold within the first few minutes of the fair opening, including two Joseph Albers paintings for $400,000 a pop. Warhol’s Cambpell Soup boxes were going at $1.1 million each, a tiny tiny Rothko (I didn’t even know that Rothko made such small scale paintings in that signature colour field style of his) for $5 million, Louise Bourgeois’ Eye from 2001 for $2 million… you get the drift. Enough to make your nose bleed. Having said this though, the bulk of the sales were under the $1 million mark, as buyers opted for the younger, more challenging work. Many of the most expensive items are still to be sold, including a Francis Bacon at $50 million.

So I’m here on my third day at Art Basel. I was just at the 10am conversations session which was great. We had the Director of Tate Modern, Chris Deacon, the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Guggenheim in New York, Nancy Spector, and Martin Roth from Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, speak to us about the future of public museum collecting in the current market environment of increasingly inflated prices, where museums are finding themselves more and more out of the money against wealthy private collectors. Great talk which I will talk about in greater detail at a later point.

I am now off to check out a satellite art fair Volta, and maybe Liste after if I have time. Tonight I’m heading over to another Art Basel production, Art Parcours, a free public program of site specific art works that have been placed around the city of Basel. They have some big outdoor party tonight. It is a beautiful sunny day in Basel. Going to make the most of this warm weather. Ciao!

Okay, my haste post yesterday did not really talk much about all the other just as important things that are going on here at Art Basel. I briefly mentioned Art Statements, Art Unlimited and the talks. I’ll have a special post just for Art Unlimited in due course. Still extremely busy… I have 20 mins here at a cafe to type something before I head over to Cinema Rex for Art Film, a series of art films programmed by Art Basel. Tonight they are showing at The Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog. I can’t wait! I also should mention that John Baldessari is sitting right opposite me as I am typing this. I didn’t think I would see him in the flesh again in only less than 6 months since his visit to Sydney in January this year. I’m trying my best not to stare. Blogging is a pretty good distraction.

Today I went to the first instalment of Art Basel Conversations, a series of 1 hour talks starting at 10am every morning of the fair. They feature distinguished artists, curators, collectors, critics, gallerists, and museum directors in an open conversation about current aspects of the international art world. This morning we had the forefather of conceptual art Allen Ruppersberg in conversation with Jay Sanders, curator of the Whitney Biennial. They discussed his work that is currently showing in Art Unlimited and his practice more generally. Like many conceptual artists, Allen loves collecting things, including vintage rock and roll paraphernalia from flea markets. For a recent art project he attempted to reconstruct the history of rock n roll just through these items found in the “real world” selling for dirt cheap, without resorting to eBay or other collectors of such material. We share the same approach to our art making and that is that the idea drives what the art looks like and how it is made. Like him, most of my artwork never takes similar form. He put it eloquently, “There is no signature style, but signature ideas.”

Then I went to two Art Salon discussions in the afternoon. Art Salon is a series of half hour panel discussions, a cut down version of Art Conversations, also featuring the various art world players. The first one I went to was called “Museum and Biennale: The incredible everyday”, featuring Susanne Gaensheimer, the curator of the German Pavilion at the current Venice Biennale (which won the Golden Lion) and German artist Tobias Rehberger. I was hoping they would discuss the difference between biennales and museums, the different roles they play, as well as their similarities, but they ended up just talking about Rehberger’s work and the MMK in Frankfurt. Dazzle seems to be quite fashionable right now… so many artists are using it. Dazzle revival.

After that I went to another Art Salon talk: “The future of the physical gallery in the digital world”. It featured Josh Baer, art advisor from New York and James Cohan, gallerist and founder of the VIP Art Fair discussing the role of the physical gallery in the art market. This was a very interesting conversation which I will discuss in further another time. No time right now.

It was already 3.30 by the time I finished up with the talks. I was going to head over to Liste, another art fair but decided to stick around to check out Art Statements. I was a bit disappointed to be honest. I’ve seen better emerging work in Melbourne. There were a few strong pieces that I liked, in particular Alexandre Singh and Ben Rivers. Apart from these however, my overall excitement level for Art Statements is rather muted.

Ok well I’m off now to catch Art Film. Sorry no photos today, I left my camera adapter back at the hostel!

I woke up at an ungodly hour of 4.45am to catch the train from Interlaken to Basel so that I could make the morning’s media reception. I was so tired and fell asleep on the train briefly, but as soon as I got into Basel I was raring to go. I dumped my bags at the hostel and took Tram no. 2 to the Messeplatz to pick up my press badge (see below!) and press pack. In the press pack we got media documents as well as the Art 42 Basel catalogue, which weighed an absolute tonne! No way was I going to carry that around. The art gods must have been on my side because I scored the very last locker available at the exhibition tower so I could home my catalogue while I made my way around the fair.

Check this bad boy out!

You can’t see the catalogue very well in this photo (in the bag on the bottom right, but it is 1.5 inches thick!!)

So what is Art Basel? Art Basel is a premier art fair (and arguably the world’s most prestigious) that runs for 6 days in early June in Basel every year, marking the summer reunion of the international art world. This year, more than 300 galleries from 35 countries across six continents are exhibiting works by over 2,500 artists, both modern and contemporary. Works range from the more affordable works by emerging artists, to museum-quality masterpieces priced in the millions. I have to point out though that there are no galleries from Australia this year, which is VERY SAD. There is one work by Hany Armanious here but apart from that the only Australian presence is Aesop, selling at the Art Basel shop.

Art Basel is split into two halls. Hall 2 is where those 300 galleries have their booths, which is the main point of interest for the throng of VIP collectors who stormed through the doors this morning as fast as their dignity would let them. Generally speaking, the ground floor is mainly comprised of blue chip galleries and galleries who represent the more established artists. On the first floor you get more emerging work. On the ground floor you had the likes of Gagosian, Pace, Marian Goodman, Paula Cooper, Gladstone, Feigen and Landau. On the first floor, David Zwirner, Blum & Poe, White Cube and Lisson.

Hall 1, which is completely separated from Hall 2, houses Art Unlimited and Art Statements. Art Unlimited offers a 17,000 sq m hall space for artists and galleries for works that need more than the conventional gallery booth, showcasing outsized sculptures, video projections, installations, wall paintings and even performance art. Art Statements spotlights 26 single-artist projects from younger galleries worldwide, often a frequent site for the discovery of emerging artists. For me this was the more exciting part of the fair. More on these later.

So it is 10am and I am sitting in the auditorium in Hall 1 waiting for the media reception to begin. I was easily the youngest person there by about 20 years. I looked around the room and I recognised no one. Some people seemed to know each other. The directors of Art Basel welcomed us press folk to the fair and made the attempt to put the fair’s importance on the artists rather than it’s commercial aspects. I quite appreciated this but it all just seemed kind of ironic considering some of the world’s most wealthiest individuals were waiting impatiently in the sun at the entrance to storm Hall 2 for the 11am VIP opening.

10.50am. I decided to skip the special press entry into the fair to join the steadfast crowd dressed in designer clothing waiting outside Hall 2. The situation was actually quite civil apart from the occasional elbow to the face, but that’s only because I’m a tiny little Asian. Standing in the crowd you could just smell the money. I have heard that every year Basel’s airport is filled with private jets for the first couple days of the art fair.

11am. Doors open and the crowd fills the foyer of the hall, only to be held up again at the turnstiles. This time things got kinda squishy. I could barely breathe. One by one we were let in. Today’s entry is strictly by invitation only, VIP or press, so things were a little more scrutinised. Some overheard remarks: “This is the only time I’m willing to get a nosebleed”, “Bruises for art!”

For the first two hours of the fair I wandered around checking out the scene. The amount of art shoved together across 300 gallery booths is just insanity. The quality of the work was also insanity. It felt like walking through a museum, but one which you could buy the work if you had pockets deep enough, and these people did. I didn’t let myself get too caught up with the art though as it would take several weeks to cover everything, so I flitted between booths, taking closer looks at things that caught my eye but otherwise I walked right past. It also wasn’t really the prime art viewing environment. It was terribly crowded and I almost felt like I was in some upper class flea market. I observed the people, mainly. I was looking at how the dealers schmoozed and how the collectors looked important (and vice versa – this is the artworld, where it isn’t uncommon for collectors suck up to dealers) and counted the number of 60-something year old millionaires with 20-something year old moles. I also caught myself staring at 14 year old girls in Ralph Lauren carrying Alexander Wang handbags, as they stood next to their uber rich parents talking about the work they were interested in with the dealers.

Overhearing conversations, it pleased me that many collectors actually knew what they were talking about. You know they are the serious ones who genuinely love art. As an artist, this is all you can hope for. But you could just as easily pick out the ones who have absolutely no idea… For example, one lady walked in front of a large Basquiat and looked at it confusingly. Then she stepped forward to read the label on the wall, got excited and called out to her husband “Oh darling, this is a Jean-Michel Basquiat!” Cue rolling eyes. I am sure you will agree with me that Basquiat is probably one of the most recognisable artists on the entire planet. Unfortunately, such is the art market sometimes…

Okay, there is just so much to write but I need to be judicious here as time is really scarce. I’m just going to dive into some of the random observations I got from today.

Artwork observations: Warhol, Picasso, Phillip Guston, Donald Judd and Carl Andre seemed to be everywhere. Warhol, especially seems to be infiltrating the market like a plague and I was surprised how many great Picassos were available. Overall, the quality is just unbelievable. I have not seen anything like this. You move from one exquisite work to another from the world’s most renowned artists. I wish could have bought something. On the ground floor you had the more commodifiable (is this a word?) works; mostly paintings, or at least works that you can hang on walls. On the first floor there were more installations, spatial works and video.

Crowd observations: It was some massive reunion alright. People from left, right and centre seemed to know each other. Lots of cheek kissing, lots of “Hey, how are you”s, and I even overheard a “Oh my god, it is like 1989 all over again.”

Art market health: Wouldn’t be able to tell you right now about how things sold, but at noon, one hour into the opening, Paula Cooper already had a huge number of red dots on the walls. There certainly wasn’t a lack of prospective buyers and it is not uncommon for many of the top galleries to sell everything on this first day, before the fair even opens to the general public.

Dealer spotting: Just about everyone was there. It was pretty exciting to see Larry Gagosian do his thing right in front of me. He seems to be a lot more outspoken than what he makes himself out to be. David Zwirner was strapping in a slim cut navy blue suit. Blum and Poe… man, what can I say… both reeking with masculinity, oh so well dressed, and extremely charismatic.

Charles Saatchi spotting: N/A.

Experiencing VIP day of Art Basel as an artist: Horrifying, but amusing. (Or should it be “Amusing, but horrifying”?) I say horrifying because to see art being reduced to such a commercial state is really sad, but I knew this was what it was going to be like so I was ready for that. As long as collectors continue to have philanthropic intentions then that’s fine with me.

Anyway, it is close to midnight and I’ve got major fair fatigue, and need to sleep for another crazy day tomorrow. Not only are there 7 art fairs on as well, there are also some great exhibitions on – Francis Alys, Henrik Olesan, and Constantin Brancusi/Richard Serra… just to name a few. But, I shall leave you with some photos from scenes from my first day at Art Basel. You will notice that there are more pictures of people than the art… this is my intention because I think taking photos of the crazy collector shopping spree in general was more reflective of my day than the art itself. However, as much as this is the main purpose of the fair, there is also a great side program of artist talks, performances, art films, site specific works and projects, and conversations on latest issues in art. In fact, this is the reason why I’m still here. I will cover these as well as Art Unlimited and Art Statements as I get to them over the coming days. Tschuss!

So, I am currently writing this post on the plane on my iPad so apologies if what I write may not be as composed as I might like it to be. I am on my way to Switzerland for the 500 art fairs that are happening in Basel next week. Okay, not quite 500, but when there are 7 big art fairs in the one city happening altogether in a single short week, it does feel like an overwhelmingly lot of art and a lot to do! Key one of course is the iconic Art Basel, and then you have the other satellite fairs for more emerging stuff – Liste, Scope, Verge, Volta, etc. Anyway, Basel is not the subject of my post today (or night, who knows what timezone I am operating on right now).

I made the opening night for Nathan Coley’s current exhibition at ACCA a couple of Fridays ago. I am glad I went that night because it meant that there was a lot of people, and the central concept of this exhibition is based on groups of people coming together (a stark contrast to my rant about gallery crowds in my Bill Henson post last month). Coley has been here in Melbourne from Scotland creating a site specific installation at ACCA. He has divided the space into four galleries, or “zones”, that represent places where people gather – the plaza, the university/school, the art gallery and the place of worship. These are the places where we gather as individuals to become a group.

The space where you enter first, the main gallery, contains three large modernist concrete platforms that appear to hover above the ground. Together they transform the gallery into a “Plaza”. All right around, the edges of the platforms are cantilevered from a central foundation, standing about 60cm high. Poured in situ, the concrete structures are modestly beautiful, elegant and fragile looking. Yet from seeing the groups of people walking up their steps, standing on them and perching on the edges we know they are strong enough to support our weight. It’s quite funny because if it weren’t for me being at and opening and seeing all those people walking and sitting on them, I would have probably not walked on them. Their sublimity and thoughtful construction made me think of them as sculptures as opposed to utilitarian platforms, but in this case they are both. I then noticed that in order to get to the adjacent gallery you needed to walk on them to get across, so I guess that would answer my question. It was also quite extraordinary to see these very permanent structures at an exhibition that you know is only temporary (it is on for 8 weeks). Art and utility, permanence and impermanence – there is already so much tension going on.

On the wall next to the platform is a text based work saying “TRESPASS AND LOITER”, a play on the “No trespassing” and “No loitering” signs in Britain. This gives a further green light to us to use the space as we would in a real plaza. I wonder if ACCA would let me eat takeaway Maccas or sushi there.

Also in the Plaza is a sculpture that reminds me of fairy lit trees along city streets and of fun fairs. I felt that this was a great addition to the space, adding both colour and light to an otherwise monochromatic space.

Towards the back of the Plaza is the third platform, and behind this is a giant reflective wall made up of elongated rectangular steel mirrors. The reflection isn’t perfect so it’s not meant to be like a mirror in your bathroom. The nature of steel mirrors is that they are imperfect in their reflective qualities, with many variations and undulations. They reflect in a similar manner to the glass windows of skyscrapers and office buildings. The aspect ratio of the steel panels is also similar to these building windows. Their size, installation and reflective qualities all give us the context that we are in the city, amongst these glass buildings.

To the left of the steel mirrors is another smaller gallery, representing the University. Set up like a lecture theatre, rows of chairs have been placed in front of a projector screen.

A lecture is being held and your lecturer is – lo and behold – Cate Blanchett! Not in person, unfortunately. Her voice; calm, professional, rather monotone and serious, speaks to the slides that are shown on the screen. The slides are images that Coley has taken of random things found in the city that have no specific relevance to architecture, like electrical boxes, street dividers, rusty steel foundations of demolished buildings, piles of concrete in front of abandoned buildings and lane ways between bricked housing. Some of these images I recognise are taken in Melbourne; the electrical box is on Spring Street, and the street divider is on Brunswick Street, opposite Umago.

Blanchett, who appears to play the role of a senior member of an architecture firm, presents these images as if they were images of her projects and discusses the central concepts behind them from an architectural point of view. It is so ironic because these objects were obviously not designed by an architect. She also speaks about the object’s relationships with the environment that it is in. We know that the colour of an electrical box corresponding with the colour of plastic sleeves on tree trunks (for non-Australians, the sleeves prevent our darling possums from climbing up the trees) is most likely coincidental, but according to Blanchett, the sleeves were put on the tree to harmonise with the colour of the electrical box.

What makes it even more hilarious is that she speaks with that intellectual and professional architecture lingo that you would expect from the industry. I found myself giggling my way through the 13 minute “lecture”. I thought this added a great touch of humour to an otherwise quite minimalistic exhibition. Despite being really obvious that the artist is taking the piss, I liked seeing how easily we can over-analyse things and add meaning to otherwise rather meaningless, random objects with the right kind of language and delivery. It made me think about art writing, as I often do anyway, and how much of a work’s meaning, or rather our understanding and interpretation, is attributed to its writing.

But back to the exhibition, the immense detail that Blanchett went into in her description of the objects in the lecture made me pay greater attention to the objects in the exhibition itself, now from an architectural point of view. I was suddenly analysing every detail; their size, height, shape, their relation to the space around them, their placement, etc. In my head, my analysis sounded exactly like how Blanchett was narrating, which I thought was quite funny. It goes to show how effective that lecture was, and I guess that’s what Coley was trying to do; to make us think about the space architecturally. But this time we know that nothing is random. Every bit of detail has been thought out carefully.

Walking back to the front of the main gallery, or Plaza, I ascended the steps of the first platform to access the adjacent gallery. Unexpectedly, there was something quite beautiful happening as I walked up those steps. The evenly poured concrete felt smooth beneath my feet. The thin steps seemed fragile and as my gaze fell on the other platforms in the Plaza, I really felt like I was standing on something that was floating. I delight myself in simple pleasures and I really loved walking up those steps!

In the adjacent gallery, which is meant to represent the “Art Gallery”, another text based work adorns the wall and a small wooden model of Scots Church (on Collins Street, Melbourne) marked with dazzle along the bottom perimeter sits on the edge of the platform I was standing on. The platform now has a third function; first, it is a sculpture; second it is an actual platform; and third, it is a plinth for artwork. Standing next to the church, on this sculpture-then-platform-now-plinth, I suppose I became artwork in the “gallery” too ;)

The text based work on the wall relates to the theme of religion, similar to the church. The words “NEVER TRUST A LOVING GOD” at first glance appears to be quite a straightforward statement. Yet it conflicts with absolutely everything that we as a society think of what “God” is meant to be – trusting and loving. So what is it trying to say? What is it referring to? Who is “God” in this case, is it the same God we think we know, and why shouldn’t we trust him? What happens to us of we do put our trust in him? We will never really know these answers because we don’t know where the words come from (all of Coley’s text based works are extracted from other found sources). It is purposely left open-ended and presented out of context so we are forced to furrow our brows and activate this thing called our brain to pick apart this statement, find our own meaning, and at the same time think of the many other possibilities of what it could be referring to. At first I was annoyed by how confident and confusing this statement statement was, but then you realise that that was the point.

In the last and final gallery space is the “place of worship”. The dazzle that adorn the walls from floor to ceiling play to the highly decorative nature of places of worship; the frescoes on church walls, the decorative arabesques in mosques, and elaborate patterns in temples and some synagogues. As the only gallery with dazzle on the wall, or any kind of painting on the wall, the effect makes you feel that you have entered a completely different space and the striking patterns force you to look up and around you. It is a similar feeling to that sudden shift in awareness of our surroundings that we might get from entering a place, especially a place of worship, which is quite separate from the outside world. Like those hot sunny days when you enter a church to find it dark, cool, and quiet. Or simply just that feeling of immediately moving from the secular world into a religious one.

Coley is not one to talk too much about his art. He steps back almost completely to give his viewer an infinite space to interpret the work, and in this case, feel the space and the effect of the objects on our perceptions of the environment. Definitely worth checking out while it is still on. You don’t see such beautiful concrete structures everyday, and neither do you hear Cate Blanchett yapping on in architectural speak about random electrical boxes in Melbourne.

Okay, so I have just arrived into Amsterdam Schipol airport in transit. I managed to get 6 hours of sleep on the flight over here which is unheard of. I fell asleep somewhere above Myanmar and woke up looking over Beirut. I have found some free wifi here at Schipol, so I will post this shortly after I finish typing. I am sitting at cafe with a much needed coffee and Swiss cheese sandwich. Right behind me is a mini museum shop for the Rijksmuseum. Kinda tacky. I might just buy a mug with Vemeer’s milk maid on it just for shits and giggles. Anyway, stay tuned to my next post, which will be from Basel! Til then, afscheid!

I’m quite sure there are a heap of reviews out there for this show (seeing the crowds that it drew) but I’m going to write about it anyway. There is no such thing as “too much” in the blogosphere ;)

Ever since the huge and unwarranted kerfuffle that came out of Henson’s previous show at Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Sydney, good old Bill has become quite the household name. Little did I know that this would drive crowds, and I mean crowds, to this show at Tolarno, his first since Roslyn Oxley9.

We rocked up to the gallery just after 1pm on Saturday (the gallery opens at 1pm). If you know Tolarno, there are no signs and you need to take some 50-year old lift up to the 4th floor of 104 Exhibition Street before you get to the gallery. I was shocked to find myself in a packed lift and subsequently packed gallery. As you know, I have had my fair share of experience visiting galleries on weekends and this was by far the busiest I have seen any gallery, excluding the blockbuster shows at the NGV of course. Imagine the last day of the Dali exhibition at the NGV. This wasn’t far behind.

I don’t mean to be a snob, but I can’t stand crowded galleries, especially for work such as Henson’s. I need that quiet space between me and the art, you know? I made my way around the works anyway, attempting not to walk into anyone and trying to dodge the sea of heads blocking my view. As I did this, the thought ran through my head — is this what he has become? Some spectacle, some entertainer? I could be wrong, but no such crowd ever goes to other similar gallery spaces in such droves. I was quite sure that a large proportion of the visitors were there for the shock factor, much like the crowds that Sensation drew at the Royal Academy back in the hey day of the YBAs. I couldn’t help but feel upset for Henson as this is clearly not the objective of his art.

But is it such a bad thing that people are making the effort to get out of their pajamas on a Saturday morning just to see art? Of course not. But there seems to be a fine line between seeing art as art and seeing art as entertainment. And as an artist, nothing makes me more annoyed than the kind of people who goes and sees the Mona Lisa for the sake of seeing the Mona Lisa. The “spectacle” is a huge distraction to what the art itself is really about, and it is this superficiality that causes people to miss the point entirely. In this world today where we often look to visual imagery for entertainment, people forget that viewing art requires engagement and commitment. Art gives you what you are willing to give it. You can’t expect the satisfaction of literal and obvious messages found in cheap entertainment, and unfortunately the “spectacle” makes a good substitute for these messages.

Unsatisfied with my first visit that crowded Saturday I went back on a weekday during lunch time. When I got there, I was the only one there. Success!! It didn’t last very long. Ten minutes in and there was about 25 people in the gallery. But it was still better than Saturday and I managed to find the time with the work.

Thirteen large scale photographs were displayed around the gallery consisting of two landscapes, two museum photographs and 9 nudes. The two landscapes consisted of a solitary mountain each, one a large glowing orange rock formation, and the other a volcano peeking through heavy mist and fog. Both shot in the night. The museum photographs (I call them museum photographs because they remind me of Thomas Struth’s museum photographs) were shot at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, of unfocused blurry heads of people viewing paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, which were in sharp focus. The nudes were a range of female and male adolescents steeped in darkness in heavy chiaroscuro, in poses reminiscent of many classical figures such those found in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera and works by Artemisia Gentileschi.

Despite the mismatch of subject matter, there was an undeniably strong and deep thread running through all of them. That thread is the ephemeral. The mist and fog of the landscapes suggested the transient nature of the weather and environmental conditions, the potential eruption and erosion of volcanos and rock forms. The mortal that is the museum visitor is juxtaposed against the figures immortalized in Rembrandt’s paintings. And, like the skin of a fresh corpse, the precarious interplay of warm and cool tones of the skin of the nudes make you question whether these people were in fact dead or alive.

Life, in this series of works, is always interjected by the imminence of death, which is then undercut, again, by the beauty and preciousness that is life. A memento mori that never ceases to shift in meaning and significance.

One word – sublime. Perhaps this is such a cliched thing to say, but Henson took my breath away. And then some.