Art Basel

Parcours: 19 site-specific artworks installed around Münsterhügel, the heart of Basel's old town

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The 2016 edition of Parcours will be sited in the historical center of Basel around the city's iconic cathedral, inhabiting locations such as the cathedral's chapel, Münsterplatz, the Museum of Culture, an underground tunnel below the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois and historic locations along the river Rhine. Curated for the first time by Samuel Leuenberger, Director and Curator of SALTS in Birsfelden, Switzerland, this year’s edition will feature 19 site-specific artworks by both internationally renowned and emerging artists: Trisha Baga, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Andrew Dadson, Michael Dean, Jim Dine, Sam Durant, Alberto Garutti, Alfredo Jaar, Hans Josephsohn, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Eva Koťátková, Allan McCollum, Iván Navarro, Virginia Overton, Tabor Robak, Tracey Rose, Bernar Venet, Michael Wang and Lawrence Weiner.

Parcours engages with Basel’s past and present by weaving artistic interventions into the fabric of the specific location each edition inhabits. This year’s edition will present a "human" or "figurative" stance, says Leuenberger, with artists addressing the relationship to the human body in an ever-more challenging pursuit for individuality and identity. Continuously shifting social political environments produce a tirade of global distress signals, questioning both our self-image and our sense of daily life and purpose.

The sector will be open to the public from Monday, June 13, to Sunday, June 19, culminating in Parcours Night on Saturday, June 18, with special performances, screenings and interactions by Anne Imhof, Eva Kot’átková, Pádraic Moore, Nástio Mosquito, Tracey Rose and Mathilde Rosier. The evening will be organized in collaboration with Basel's many dynamic arts institutions, including Kunsthalle Basel and Institut Kunst, HGK FHNW, and in partnership with Raw Material Company from Dakar.

Highlights of the sector include: Sam Durant’s large-scale Labyrinth (2015) on Münsterplatz presented by Blum & Poe, Paula Cooper Gallery and Sadie Coles HQ. The installation reflects on the issues of freedom and imprisonment, movement and immobility. Nearby, Hauser & Wirth will exhibit a group of 16 sculptures by Hans Josephsohn. Presented by von Bartha, Bernar Venet’s site-specific project Effondrement:Arcs (2016) will seemingly create a sea of debris with steel arcs toppled and piled one on top of the other. Presented by Goodman Gallery, Galerie Lelong, Lia Rumma, kamel mennour and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Alfredo Jaar’s The Gift (2016) focuses on mass migration in Europe and will be encountered on and around Münsterplatz.

In the Bau- und Verkehrsdepartement Basel-Stadt, Andrew Dadson’s Black Plant Sunset (2016) presented by Galleria Franco Noero in cooperation with David Kordansky Gallery and RaebervonStenglin will fill a room with plants painted black. As the plants grow over the course of the exhibition, green will emerge from beneath the black paint. Virginia Overton’s site-specific work Untitled (2016) outside of the Bau- und Verkehrsdepartement, presented by White Cube, will show a dismantled pick up truck. On Rheinsprung, Michael Dean will present ffff (2016), a work to be encountered by chance in the streets; an imitation of abandoned locked bicycles, an italic glyph of a family, presented by Supportico Lopez, Mendes Wood DM and Herald St.

Iván Navarro’s installation Traffic (2015) out of seven pairs of traffic lights and presented by Galerie Daniel Templon, will be shown in Birsigtunnel, the city's historical sewage tunnel located below the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois. Muscle and Salt (2016) by Jim Dine presented by Richard Gray Gallery is an immersive installation in the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig. On Monday at 7:30pm, Dine will read from his poems while being accompanied by a double bass player.

For the full artist list, please see our website.

Art Basel, whose Lead Partner is UBS, will take place from Thursday, June 16 to Sunday, June 19, 2016 with the preview taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 14 and 15, 2016. This year, 286 leading international galleries from 33 countries will present works ranging from the early 20th century to the most contemporary artists of today.