8 Art Basel Booths to Put at the Top of Your List

From an exhibition exploring the colonial histories of Africa to a joint presentation of new works by Bernard Frize, here’s the best of this year’s booths.

Erin N. Mack's Untitled (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery.

Art Basel, the world’s most prominent fair, is back, and we’ve been covering it top to bottom to bring you the 10 best artworks, a breakout star, and several special highlights (here, here, and here). Now we turn our attention to a few of our favorite booths from artnet’s member galleries.

 

Annet Gelink Gallery

Left: Carla Klein’s Untitled (2018). Right: Roger Hiorns’s Untitled (2018) cast bronze sculpture. Images courtesy of Art Basel and Annet Gelink Gallery.

Annet Gelink’s booth in Basel’s galleries section provides an overview of work by leaders of the Dutch art scene, who feature extensively in the gallery’s roster, alongside a diverse array of international artists. Highlights include the photorealistic painting of Dutch artist Carla Klein, who uses her photography as source material for her paintings, all of which focus on landscapes that are devoid of people. The London-based artist Roger Hiorns’s paints plaster constructions whose forms straddle static object-hood and animated organisms.
Galleries, Booth K13
 

Galerie Max Hetzler

Günther Förg’s Untitled (1987). Photo by Serge Hasenböhler, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Paris, London.

Galerie Max Hetzler is bringing its ‘A’ game to Basel this year. Its booth boasts some of the most important international artists working today, including Günther Förg, Albert Oehlen, and Julian Schnabel. The more frenetic canvases are tempered by a selection of Edmund de Waal‘s “landscapes,” or vitrines containing clusters of objects painted in black matte and gold. Other highlights of the booth include Raymond Hains‘s outsized bronze sculpture of a matchstick, photographs by Thomas Struth, and new work by Adam Pendleton. The gallery is also presenting Mahnmahl-Mahnmal, a plaster-covered installation by the German artist Inge Mahn in the Unlimited section.

Galleries, Booth B10 | Unlimited, U55

 

Sean Kelly Gallery

Marina Abramović’s Lips of Thomas (1975/2005) video. Image courtesy of Art Basel.

For this edition of Art Basel, Sean Kelly Gallery is taking a unique approach to its curated booth with the expansive presentation “Three Generations,” which is comprised of three distinct installations that change over the course of the fair. The first installment features artists born between 1940 and 1959, and includes longtime gallery staples like Marina Abramović, Candida Höfer, Tehching Hsieh, Joseph Kosuth, and Anthony McCall. The second leg, unveiled Thursday and Friday, features mid-career artists like Frank Thiel, James White, and Kehinde Wiley. The final section, on display Saturday and Sunday, highlights the youngest of the gallery’s roster, including artists Hugo McCloud, Landon Metz, Sam Moyer, and Sun Xun.

Galleries, Booth R2

 

Marianne Boesky Gallery

Left, Maria Lai’s Loom (1967). Right: Donald Moffett’s Lot 041118 (cadmium chartreuse) (2018). Images courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery.

Marianne Boesky’s booth is a multimedia garden of delights, featuring both historical and contemporary works whose juxtaposition encourages new aesthetic dialogues. Pieces from Sardinian artist Maria Lai’s archive are seen alongside contemporary interpretations of texture and material by artists like Donald Moffett, who also employs mixed materials and is averse to the constraints of two-dimensional picture plains. 

Galleries, Booth D12

 

Simon Lee and Perrotin

Installation view of Simon Lee and Perrotin’s Bernard Frize exhibition. © Bernard Frize / ADAGP, Paris 2018. Courtesy of the artist, Perrotin, and Simon Lee.

After a successful collaboration at last year’s fair showing the work of Hans Hartung, powerhouse galleries Simon Lee and Perrotin partner up again this year for a joint presentation of new works by French abstract painter Bernard Frize. Situated in a vestibule at one end of the hall, the two galleries’ booth is spread across two floors. The Frize exhibition is contained in a small room on the lower level, while other pieces—works from Simon Lee artists like Eric N. Mack and George Condo and Perrotin artists Daniel Arsham and Claire Tabouret—are arranged throughout the large space. Frize currently has a solo show up at Simon Lee’s London space and will be the subject of a major retrospective opening at the Musée National d’art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris next year.

Galleries, Booths M25 and M26

 

Galerie Thomas Schulte

Installation view of Galerie Thomas Schulte’s booth at Art Basel 2018. Courtesy of Galerie Thomas Schulte.

Not far away, Berlin-based dealer Thomas Schulte returns to Art Basel with a selection of works from roster artists such as Gordon Matta-Clark, Michael Müller, and Leunora Salihu. Highlights include a new pair of colorful, graphic canvases from Jonathan Lasker; twisted and rolled-up oil-on-aluminum sculptures by Angela de la Cruz; and a handful of dripping Waterfall paintings from Pat Steir (who also has a solo exhibition on view at the gallery now).

Galleries, Booth M16

 

Goodman Gallery

Yinka Shonibare MBE, General of Tivoli (2018). Courtesy of Goodman Gallery.

Goodman Gallery, based in South Africa, presents a series of works that “grapples with colonial histories,” largely featuring the work of artists from the continent and its diaspora. For instance, an installation by Grada Kilomba features a pile of soil, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and chocolate on the gallery floor—a memorial to the black laborers on plantations. Elsewhere, a new work by Yinka Shonibare MBE, titled General of Tivoli (2018), combines classical sculpture with patterned African garments to subvert the symbols of colonial power. Three of the gallery’s artists are also included in fair’s Unlimited exhibition platform—Candice Breitz, Alfredo Jaar, and Mikhael Subotzky (who presents a collaborative project with Patrick Waterhouse).

Galleries, Unlimited, Booth R12

 

Galerie Karsten Greve

Louise Bourgeois, St. Sébastienne (2002). Courtesy of Galerie Karsten Greve.

Galerie Karsten Greve returns to Basel with a lineup of works by some big names: Joel Shapiro, Giorgio Morandi, Jean Dubuffet, and Lucio Fontana, to name a few. Be sure not to miss Louise Bourgeois’s offerings—two figurative sculptures done in the early 2000s and a mysterious 1946 painting of a young woman holding a bouquet of flowers before a workbench that seems to be propped up by an owl.

Galleries, Booth G1


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