Jean Genet: Thief, saint, and militant

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Tom Burr, Artist, New York Ida Ekblad, Artist, Oslo Moderator: Pierre-Alexandre Mateos, Co-curator, Art Basel Paris Conversations
Jean Genet (1910–1986) was a thug, an activist, a writer, director, and playwright, who raged against the very idea of an institution, whether prison or state. Between his rough and mannerist aesthetic, stints in prison, tales of heady sexuality, and commitments against the tyranny of power, he spent his life dignifying the margins. At a time when previously unpublished projects are being rediscovered and exhibited, this discussion will look at the fascination he continues to hold for artists, without obscuring the darker side of his writing. 

Tom Burr works across sculpture, collage, photography, and writing. Emerging out of the legacies of Minimalism, Conceptualism, feminist art practice, and institutional critique, Burr’s work reflects this history alongside his own biographical coordinates to consider notions of subjectivity and place, desire and states of control, and shifting Queer conditions. Since the late 1980s Burr has exhibited in numerous venues internationally. After attending the School of Visual Arts and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, Burr joined American Fine Arts, Co., where his exhibitions during the 1990s and early 2000s helped to ignite a dialogue around expanded ideas of site specificity, form, Queer subjectivities, and political forces. Solo exhibitions have been presented at Secession, Vienna; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, among others. Burr’s work has been included in Skulptur Projekte Münster; the Istanbul Biennial; and the Whitney Biennial, among other international survey exhibitions. Tom Burr, Anthology: Writings 1991-2015 was published by Sternberg Press in 2015. Burr’s ‘Torrington Project’ (2021-present) is an ongoing inquiry into the artist’s archive and exhibition making, and includes an assembly of works from the late 1980s to the present in an expansive factory building in Torrington, Connecticut. A comprehensive publication emerging from the project will be published by Primary Information in 2025. 
Ida Ekblad lives and works in Oslo. Using painting, sculpture, and poetry interchangeably, the artist transforms motifs found in a wide variety of references including old master paintings, deviant art, and traditional crafts, as well as graffiti, manga, and personal memories. Her expressive works pair painterly gravitas with a mischievous humor, exemplifying her sense of playfulness and fearless appropriation. Ekblad’s practice is focused on our hyper-retinal culture which she tries to visually record and comprehend. 
The Art Basel Paris 2024 Conversations program is curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou.

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