Art Basel, the world’s largest art market, began on Thursday and will continue all week, attracting art enthusiasts and the business elite to the lovely, river-cleaved Swiss town. However, with a bear market looming in the United States, most portfolios are down at least 20%, and inflation on the rise, it’s unclear how eager collectors will be.
Nonetheless, Art Basel, which continues until Sunday, is as much about museum exhibitions, gallery presentations, and networking – and none of that appears to be changing.
Maha Mullah, Galerie Krinzinger at Art Basel Unlimited
One of Saudi artist Maha Mullah’s cassette compositions, made completely of tapes she buys and utilises for retro mosaics, is on display at Vienna’s Galerie Krinzinger.
She presents the globe as blocky and almost pixilated in Food for Thought “World Map,” employing the now-obsolete music format as a visual art technique.
Basim Magdy and Ahmed Morsi, Gypsum at Art Basel Unlimited and Art Basel Feature
Ahmed Morsi’s paintings are on display in the Art Basel Feature area at Cairo gallery Gypsum. In the 1940s, the Egyptian artist began working in Alexandria before moving to New York in 1974. His meticulously crafted, sympathetic canvases are now gaining a larger audience, thanks in part to his well-received 2017 show at the Sharjah Art Foundation.
Gypsum is exhibiting the wry, thoughtful, and questioning work of fellow Egyptian artist Basim Magdy in Art Basel Unlimited, where he examines images from the past and present (as well as imagines the future) to understand the assumptions that underpin them — and frequently to highlight their absurdities.
Mounira Al Solh, Sfeir-Semler at Art Basel Unlimited
The installation Lackadaisical Sunset to Sunset by Lebanese artist Mounira Al Solh is on display. An embroidered tent, a massive textured wall piece, and a sound component make up the installation.
Al Solh’s tents are frequently employed as vessels for containing historical and contemporary women’s stories and disquisitions. The pieces are also about feminine labour, laced through with needlework and floating in the air, as if on the verge of being whisked away or plummeting abruptly to the earth.