The Unlimited: oversize art
As the name has already proclaimed itself, Unlimited, this particular Art Basel’s section, offers the visitors an unlimited experiences and perceptions through Time and Space. At the extrinsic level, it is quite evident from the first impact when entering the hall as the exhibition is presented across a vast physical space of 16,000 square meters. The platform, curated for the fifth consecutive year by Gianni Jetzer, is as well presented in multiform, which could be from something concrete like wall paintings, structure of sculptures, construction to something much more abstract like video projections and performances. However, for certain, they all are perceptible as large scale installations that aim to have a considerable impact on the visitors in a way or another. These large installations comprised a record number of 88 participants from international artists across the world with their diverse demographics, races, nations, cultures and languages. Moreover, the way of conveying the messages or engaging the visitors that each artist have instrumentally chosen is made through the use of varied channel of senses like the visual, auditory and tactual one.
It is true that the matters of individual taste is subjective. Nevertheless, it is this subjectivities of our team that have identified representative highlight installations of this event by divided them into 4 division of installations that evoke the visitors’s mind openness.
At the beginning of our anti-clockwise course through the Unlimited, two very easy to overlook installations have nonetheless caught our attention. The installation Ascenseur, 2013 by Laura Lima is presented with the simple appearance where an arm is reaching from underneath of a wall looking for the lost key that was intentionally throw in the middle of the street as indirectly requested the passer-by an interaction. We could see people gently returning the key to the hand, aggressively kicking the key back to the searching hand or even indifferent passer-by. This very simple work not only touches moral discussion on the Otherness but as well it questions the reaction and interaction of the society as a whole.
Not that far after, Samson Young’s Canon, 2015 has caught our ears attention. Looking up to the top of the booth-sized structure, stands an Asian performer in uniform with the non-lethal sonic weapon that called the Long Range Acoustic Device ( LRAD), which is used by many law enforcement to break up the crowds in a demonstration and, which could induce permanent hearing damage of the people. At the same this technology is also use to repel birds on private properties.
Moving on, division of some chosen installations that their questioning are oriented towards the concern of the global situation and system. Pedro Cabrita Reis’s South Wing, 2015 represents the questioning of the social aspect where exclusion, rejection and outcast status are concerned through the used of materials, in this case doors, from formally inhabited places, which could be from social housing, asylum and even prison.
Whereas, the awarded of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement of the Venice Biennale’s artist, El Anatsui’s Gli (wall), 2010 is questioning the paradoxical nature of wall, which on one hand is connected to the word unity and safety, on the other hand is connected to obstacles and barriers. He works with discarded materials like those from liquor bottle caps and scraps of aluminum. The Paulo Nazareth’s Banderas Rotas ( Broken Flags), 2014 have used waving flags through the 19-channel video installation as symbolic representation of national territories that are only an imaginary creation of human.
Ai Weiwei’s White House, 2015 a majestic residential home, built during the Qing Dynasty, with decorated columns, which indicates the wealthy status of the former occupant has been painted with thick coating of industrial white paint. He signals how the modernization and industrialization of today’s has coverup China’s history and tradition. He as well questions our relationship between the past and the present’s values of the global system.
Division of installations that question the inner human’s spirituality in relation to the nature of time. Hans Op de Beeck, the collector’s House, 2016 leads us through, a mysterious place of soft grey plaster and Pompeian atmosphere where the modern object like the grand piano, library, furnitures, as well as sculpture in form of people are all like frozen and petrified through time; however, strangely all connected to us, to our image of today.
While Chiharu Shiota’s Accumulation: Searching for Destination, 2014-2016 uses suitcases as a symbolic inspiration of each individual’s inner search through their life’s movement and thoughts. What is as well intriguing here is that their search is controlled by the unexpected, which continuously shapes our destination like the string that hold those hanging suitcases.
Division of installations that question the aesthetic of art itself through forms and colors. From the classical well known, Frank Stella, Damascus Gate ( stretch Variation), 1970 is the perfect representation. He introduced the complementary understanding of angles, curves and fluorescent colors.
Anish Kapoor’s Dragon, 1992 goes on further with form by questioning the non-object, the auto-generated object, the monochrome, and the void through his eight Japanese riverbed stones that their outer skin are transformed, through the use of deep Prussian-blue pigment, into something ethereal and boundless, “an in-between body, cave, and the beast” ; thus, Dragon.
The last but not least chosen installation near the exit, David Balula’s mimed Sculptures, 2016 have captured visitors‘ regard by using a group of mime performers to present invisible works of sculpture by Louise bourgeois, Alberto Giacometti, Eva Hesse, Tony Smith, Barbara Hepworth, David Smith and Henry Moore. This installation goes even beyond the normal form and color of the object in virtual reality to something purely imaginary.
This immense space could be said to have projected different worthwhile questions that are originated from different perceptually conceptual backgrounds. The beauty is that all are intertwined and united by the passion for art and liberal expression, two faces of the same coin, or say it differently, two of the very important values of the modern world of nowadays!
