Exhibitions and program during Art Basel

Special opening hours during Art Basel at Kunsthaus Baselland
June 12–18, Monday to Sunday: 10am–6pm
Wednesday, June 14: noon–6pm

Kunsthaus Baselland @ Freilager-Platz: Jeppe Hein
June 13, 7:30pm
Welcoming by Ines Goldbach at Jeppe Heins Water Pavilion “Appearing Rooms”
Freilager-Platz, CH-4142 Münchenstein

Kunsthaus Baselland @ I Never Read
June 14–17
New publications at I Never Read, Art Book Fair Basel
Kaserne Basel, Klybeckstr. 1b, CH-4057 Basel

Artist talk with Monira Al Qadiri, Pia Fries, Simone Holliger, Maya Schweizer, Hannah Weinberger
June 14, 11:30am
In conversation with Ines Goldbach at Kunsthaus Baselland

Pia Fries 
Through July 9, 2023
Since the 1990s, Pia Fries has undisputedly been one of the most important international figures in the field of painting. Born in 1955 in Beromünster, Switzerland, she relocated to Germany in the 1980s to study at the renowned Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Gerhard Richter, where she became one of his master students. She has since developed an individual, distinctive body of work, which explores the possibilities of painting and space through the medium’s intrinsic materiality. This new, free, and also open concept of painting has earned Pia Fries numerous awards and invitations to renowned exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, as well as appointments to several professorships. Alongside works from the 1990s, the exhibition at Kunsthaus Baselland shows her most recent works for the first time in Switzerland. They represent a new artistic milestone for Pia Fries. 

As part of the exhibition, a publication will be released on June 14, 2023.

Simone Holliger: Venir en main
Through July 9, 2023
For several years now, award-winning, internationally active artist Simone Holliger has worked with carefully chosen materials. Through an experimental, process based approach, she creates sculptures that are typically several meters in height and width. They grow in and together with the space surrounding them. Voluminous and compact and at the same time permeable and light, the objects play with our visual habits and invite us to consider the solid and the empty, the recto and the verso, the visible and the hidden. 

Born in 1986 and living and working in the Basel area, the artist also thinks about the space, builds and shapes it—its texture and tonal value, as well as the smells, temperatures, and people that inhabit it. At Kunsthaus Baselland, Simone Holliger makes her largest institutional presentation in Basel to date. Concurrently with her solo exhibition, she also designs the Annual Exterior Project 2023.

As part of the exhibition, a publication will be released on June 14, 2023.

Nature. Sound. Memory
Monira Al Qadiri, Joan Jonas, Sigalit Landau, Maya Schweizer, Hannah Weinberger
Through July 9, 2023
This group exhibition focuses on large-scale installations, particularly video works that directly address the themes of nature, climate change, sound, memory, and participation. Through an approach that is both poetic and immersive, they enable the viewer to have a unique experience and ultimately gain a deeper understanding of these issues. Many of the works are concerned with questions of heedfulness towards natural spaces, history, time, identity, memory, in connection with sound works and performative practices. Both urban and natural spaces—such as oceans, lakes, and deserts—are experienced as interfaces of individual and collective behaviors. They serve as sources for cinematic, textual, and performative observation. In their perception of these familiar or even inaccessible and hidden places and spaces, the featured artists uncover social and political realities as well as inscribed histories and narratives, creating highly striking images and sound fields. This will be the first time that these works will be shown in Switzerland.

On Wednesday, June 14, 2023 the premiere of the video work Sans histoire by Maya Schweizer will take place at Kunsthaus Baselland. Additionally the premiere of her sound installation Vulnérable Witness will be presented by Kunsttage Basel at Basel Social Club, June 11-18, 2023.

Jeppe Hein: Appearing Rooms 
PUBLIC ART @FREILAGER-PLATZ #1
Through September 3, 2023
Open daily 11am–7pm throughout the month of June.
Some artworks might encourage you to walk or even run. Jeppe Hein’s works do just the opposite. They pause and invite you to look closely, marvel, and experience. Born in Copenhagen in 1974, the Berlin-based artist has been surprising the public for many years. During the next few months, Jeppe Hein’s water pavilion Appearing Rooms will be open to everyone at Freilager-Platz, on the Dreispitz in Basel—for several hours each day, Monday to Sunday, irrespective of the weather. PUBLIC ART@FREILAGER-PLATZ is an initiative by the FHNW Academy of Art and Design Basel (HGK; Claudia Perren, Director), House of Electronic Arts Basel (HEK; Sabine Himmelsbach, Director), Kunsthaus Baselland (KHBL; Ines Goldbach, Director), and Interessengemeinschaft Freilagerplatz (IG, Chairman Peter Driessen). It pursues the shared aim of enlivening Freilager-Platz with alternating, publicly accessible art in order to sustainably increase its visitor appeal and strengthen the neighborhood. 

#1 is the responsibility of Ines Goldbach, Kunsthaus Baselland. It is the first cross-institutional project of this kind and marks the imminent move of the new Kunsthaus Baselland to the Dreispitz, scheduled for completion by the end of 2023.

Read a conversation between Jeppe Hein and Ines Goldbach here.

Many thanks to the sponsor of all exhibitions: Hans und Renée Müller Meylan Stiftung, Hans und Monika Furer-Brunner Stiftung, Aargauer Kuratorium, Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung, Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer, Institut Français, Ambassade de France en Suisse et au Liechtenstein, Novartis, Dr. Georg und Josi Guggenheim Stiftung, Christoph Merian Stiftung, Kraft E.L.S AG, iart, ffbk Architekten AG, Porsche Zentrum Basel, Radio X, Rapp AG, Implenia and thoses who wish to remain unnamed.

Many thanks to the annual partners 2023: Amt für Kultur Basel-Landschaft, Gemeinde Muttenz, Burckhardt + Partner, Anthony Vischer, Marina Meijer-von Tscharner and to those who wish to remain unnamed.

Director/Curator: Ines Goldbach  
Director’s Assistant: Martina Stähli
Communications, Publications and Assistant Curator: Ines Tondar
Organization Office: Salome Tramèr
Education: Meret Glausen