At the Liste Art Fair in Basel, the cutting-edge, younger satellite event held adjacent to Art Basel, several exhibitors shared concerns about a market slow-down, which has particularly hit their sector for less-established artists. Yet by the third day, many said the fair had gone far better than expected, despite some visitors noting the displays were on the safe side. With 91 galleries participating from 35 countries, there were certainly several intriguing booths featuring new artists and their works to discover. And over the weekend, the fair announced the appointment of its new artistic director, Nikola Dietrich, the director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Germany and former head of contemporary art at the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Below, a look at the best on offer at Liste, which runs through June 16 at the Messe Basel.
Edith Karlson and Flo Kasearu at Temnikova & Kasela Gallery
In Tallinn-based Temnikova & Kasela’s booth, Edith Karlson is displaying Doomsday (2017–24), a self-portrait in the form of a large, porcelain sculpture of her deconstructed body. A metaphor for childbirth, its sectioned parts hang like a chandelier, with an LED light rod at its core. Karlson, who is representing Estonia at the Venice Biennale this year, has several works on view referencing motherhood and parenting, as well as bodily transformations. In terracotta reliefs, she sculpts mermaid-like creatures with lizard-like heads. Smiling with toothy grins, they swim, as though dancing through the water, holding flags in their outstretched arms.
Sharing the booth, is another Tallinn-based artist Flo Kasearu, who is showing large soap sculptures molded from models of her home, a frequent subject in her work. One house soap sculpture sits in a sink as water from a dripping faucet slowly erodes its roof, while others are displayed on large soap dishes. Also on view are Kasearu dystopic drawings of stately museums: crumbling, beamed up by UFOs, melting like wax, and disappearing altogether, just a faint trace of its erased building remaining.
Louis Morlæ at Rose Easton
These uncanny sculptures are a challenge to fully grasp—they slide between and straddle different aesthetics, ways of making, and art historical associations. As a result, they deepen upon closer observation. For the presentation, titled “Purgatorio” and conceived for Liste, London-based artist Louis Morlæ is showing five sculptures made with resin and plastic 3D printing as well as CNC woodworking machines. They are at first reminiscent of avatar-like, futuristic creatures, but they possess a kind of organic quality to them. There is also a good deal of humor to many of the works, particularly those with bulbous noses peeking out of drains and other crevices, drawn from figures in paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Abi Shehu at Voloshyn Gallery
For her powerful multi-media installation, titled “see, once more the stars,” Shehu draws inspiration from her family’s history of migration and attempted escape from Albania after the fall of the country’s Stalinist dictator, Enver Hoxha. The water-worn caves along the Vjosa River in Albania become a metaphor for this Dantesque journey, which Shehu depicts in a large, close-up black-and-white photograph. Surrounding it are “vases,” or rough, earthen sculptures shaped like warped vessels with narrowing necks that open to form mouths. Shehu has placed ceramic dentures in their openings, in a reference to her father’s teeth being knocked out by police when he tried to escape. The booth also includes a series of video animations by Shehu made from photographs of graffiti drawings on the walls of Albania’s Spaçpolitical prison, now forgotten and in ruins.
Melissa Joseph at Margot Samel
Melissa Joseph uses felted wool like paint, turning the resulting objects into fabric sculptures. She is showing several pieces made with old first aid boxes and found accordions into which she creates her scenes in felt from photographs of her family, friends, and musicians. The surfaces of these felted images have the wool’s undulating depth, and an expressive lack of realism to them. Edges are fuzzed and sometimes, it takes a moment to recognize a figure. Growing up, Joseph told ARTnews, “I did not have museums. I did not have any kind of fine art access,” but her family made crafts, like ceramics, quilts, cross-stitch. By felting the narratives of her family photographs into these containers, she feels that she is preserving these traditions and memories. “It’s as if they are safe,” she said.
Brian Dawn Chalkley at Lungley Gallery
Brian Dawn Chalkley is known for their performances as Dawn, a leading figure in London’s trans clubbing scene of the 1980s and ’90s, and for hosting the Salon, a performance event in the British capital. The artist has been exploring themes of gender for decades, but according to the gallery, only embraced “Dawn” as an alter ego in 1996 and soon after began integrating that change into their art practice. Though Chalkley started out as a painter, here they present their vibrant, unreal scenes made from embroidery on cotton pillowcases. Chalkley’s deft hands cause these lines of sewn thread to appear as if they were doodled and scribbled with marker, instead of embroidered. In these tableaux, which have a dreamy, memory-like quality to them, Chalkley often incorporates a good deal of text, with some phrases being easier to decipher than others: “Antonin Artaud on the beach,” or “Wolf men having a break from Freud.”
Sevina Tzanou at Kendall Koppe
When people call a fair safe, as has been thrown around quite a bit this week, that tends to mean there are more paintings on hand, and generally, more decorative works. But there are some impressively strong paintings at Liste that should not be written off simply because of mode of production. The vibrant oil and acrylic works by Greek artist Sevina Tzanou are but one example. Once you spot them, they grab hold of you and don’t let go. The artist, who lives and works in Bonn, Germany, presents paintings of burlesque and drag performers in both decadent scenes as well as going about day-to-day life, on the cusp of looming nightmare and chaos. Tzanou paints with free, expressive figuration—bony hands resting on a table come to red, pointy tips, in what feels like just a few, elegant brush strokes. The paintings’ corners hide poems from which entirely new narratives emerge.
