Since being introduced in 2000, Art Basel's Unlimited sector has allowed participating galleries to showcase monumental sculptures, video projections, wall paintings, photographic series, and performance art in a way that transcends the traditional art-fair stand. Curated for the sixth consecutive year by Gianni Jetzer, curator-at-large at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., Unlimited features projects ranging from historically significant pieces to the latest contemporary works.
Highlights include 'Cooking the World I' (2017), in which artist Subodh Gupta prepares food inside a shelter comprised entirely of aluminum utensils, each hanging delicately from a single transparent fishing line. Also incorporating performance is 'BLISS (REALITY CHECK)' (2017) by Donna Huanca, an elaborate installation designed to suspend the viewer between the role of passive onlooker and active performer. Meanwhile 'Movie Mural' (1965-68), an immersive installation by pioneering multimedia artist Stan VanDerBeek, features newsreels, found film footage, glass slides, projected drawings, and the artist's own experimental films. And in Sue Williamson's 'Messages from the Atlantic Passage' (2017) five rope fishing nets filled with glass bottles are suspended from the ceiling; each bottle contains traces of earth, and is inscribed with the details of one of the 12.5 million people shipped from the African continent to the New World as slaves between 1525 and 1866.
Art Basel in Basel runs from June 15 to June 18, 2017.