Berenice Abbott, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham
Edwynn Houk Gallery, Galleries sector

Among the many early 20th-century masterpieces presented by Edwynn Houk are works by four iconic photographers: Berenice Abbott, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, and Imogen Cunningham. These women witnessed and documented the changes that characterized the 1920s and 1930s, all the while creating an intimate and personal corpus of work. By capturing busy streets and grandiose buildings, and in self-portraits, close-ups of the body, and suggestive details of flowers, they were some of the first photographers to immortalize the interiority and solitude of womanhood. J.A.

Alvaro Barrington
Grandma’s Land, 2023
Sadie Coles HQ, Parcours sector (curated by Stefanie Hessler)

Alvaro Barrington, born in Caracas, Venezuela and now based in London, continues to explore the intimate and cultural narratives of his Caribbean upbringing with his latest installation for Art Basel’s Parcours. This hand-constructed structure uses makeshift materials found in Caribbean housing, including timber, corrugated metal sheet, soil, burlap, and concrete to evoke the region’s essence of family life and culture. Significantly, Barrington situates his work in Tropical Zone, a modest Afro-Caribbean beauty and grocery store. The location has a democratizing effect, making the artwork accessible beyond exhibition spaces while celebrating local businesses. By leaving the installation in the store indefinitely, Barrington questions who benefits from art and where its value is recognized. A.R.

Wade Guyton
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Matthew Marks Gallery, Galerie Francesca Pia
Galleries sector

One of the biggest privileges – if not the ultimate privilege – of being an Art Basel staffer is having access to the show floor beyond opening hours, meaning that one may end up marveling at a Louise Bourgeois or exploring the Statements sector once visitors have left. A recurring visual delight this author has witnessed throughout the years is tender rays of early-morning sunlight illuminating segments of a Wade Guyton work, often at Galerie Chantal Crousel or Matthew Marks’ booths. But regardless of the hour, the presence of natural light, or the absence of crowds, the American artist’s work rarely disappoints. Using an inkjet printer, Guyton creates paintings and works on paper that question the very essence of image-making by emphasizing his primary tool’s weaknesses. Glitches, blurrs, and blotches are magnified, creating sometimes irritating, often showstopping, and always gloriously flat visual riddles. K.C.

Madeline Hollander
Sub-Clique, 2024
Parcours sector (curated by Stefanie Hessler)
Performance on Wednesday, June 12, at 8pm

With Art Basel in full swing, it is easy to overlook the city’s other claim to fame: the Basler Fasnacht, or Basel Carnival. For Parcours Night on June 12, California-born artist and choreographer Madeline Hollander will send her dancers, clad in costumes inspired by Basel’s urban cleaning squad and wearing carnivalesque masks, down Clarastrasse. They will perform with manhole sculptures, drawing parallels between the flow of people in the street and the flow of water beneath, before staging a grand finale on Mittlere Brücke (or Middle Bridge), Basel’s oldest Rhine crossing. The fair and the city will have rarely felt so meaningfully intertwined. C.M.

Charlotte Johannesson
Hollybush Gardens, Kabinett

For over 50 years, Swedish artist Charlotte Johannesson has explored the connections between craft and technology, specifically through her pioneering use of the loom in tandem with early computer programming. When Johannesson trained as a weaver in the 1960s, she used the medium to convey political dissent: The imagery seen in her early textiles reflect feminist, punk, and militant activism of the 1960s and 1970s. Then, in 1978, she traded one of her textile works for an early Apple computer, with which she taught herself how to program using the same logic as the loom. Each knot became a pixel, and from then onward, she made graphics for both the loom and the screen. In Basel, a special focus will be placed on her work from the 1980s, the decade when her practice as a feminist weaver and her experimentation with digital art converged. E.M.

Premiere artist talk: Mire Lee
Conversations (curated by Kimberly Bradley)
Wednesday, June 12, 3pm

For the traditional ‘Premiere artist talk’ of the Conversations program, South-Korean artist Mire Lee will engage in a discussion with Alvin Li, Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, London, moderated by the newly appointed director of Kunsthalle Basel, Mohamed Almusibli. Lee’s repertoire typically features large-scale kinetic sculptures and installations that blend organic and mechanical elements. With her upcoming presentation at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall this fall, marking her first major exhibition in the UK, Lee and Li will delve into the artist’s vision, the impact of her works in today’s international art ecosystem, and what audiences might anticipate in London. P.S.

LuYang
DOKU The Flow, 2024
Société, Unlimited (curated by Giovanni Carmine)

The second long-form installment of LuYang’s ongoing exploration of the world via his genderless digital avatar Doku, DOKU The Flow is a 50-minute-long filmic journey steeped in Buddhist references, including the philosophy of Mādhyamika. The film – beautifully rendered with gaming software – picks up where the first installment, DOKU The Self (2022), left off. At the end of The Self, Doku shatters into crystalline pieces, a reference to the diamond and heart sutras; The Flow opens with those pieces being put back together, enabling Doku to board a cruise ship named Desire, designed to satisfy the five greatest desires of all beings. As Doku falls in and out of the trappings of different earthly thirsts, the avatar eventually arrives at the ultimate Buddhist belief of emptiness, setting their body free from Western ideas of life and death. E.M.

Hotel Merian
Parcours (curated by Stefanie Hessler)

This year sees an unusual addition to Art Basel’s usual programming, with 19 artists, performers, and DJs taking over the vacant Hotel Merian, just by the Rhine river. Hosted in turn by Pati Hertling of Performance Space New York, Gropius Bau’s Jenny Schlenzka, and Aindrea Emelife of the Museum of West African Art in Benin, the vibrant programming promises an alternative to the art fair. Put your vocal skills to the test in Wendy’s Wok World’s karaoke night, grab a drink or a snack, sit down, and immerse yourself in performances by Young Boy Dancing Group and Hairbone, and DJ sets by Okra Collective and Chuquimamani-Condori. J.F.