Summe

The square fascinates artists with its ideal geometric form, which serves as a universal building block.
Reducing the work to this form allows artists to focus entirely on color, material, and texture.

QUADRAT
13.–22.08.2026

▪️ Udo Albrecht
▪️ Arman Allakhverdian
▪️ Marion Altmann
▪️ Tanja Arnold
▪️ Emanuela Assenza
▪️Magda Betkowska
▪️Urs Bratschi
▪️ Esther Graf
▪️ Daniel Gutzwiller
▪️Simone Illing
▪️ Aga Jaworska
▪️ Heike Kurtenbach
▪️Rahim Lascandri
▪️ Mau Pavón
▪️Saskia Penders
▪️Annette Pfister
▪️ RONY
▪️Anna-Katharina Rintelen
▪️Noemi Savoldelli
▪️Agnes Skipper
▪️ Dominique Steiger
▪️ Franziska Tanner
▪️ Florian Wörrle
▪️ Vinzenz Wyser

Opening:
Thursday, August 13, 2026
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Hours:
Wednesday 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Friday 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Closing:
Saturday, August 22, 2026, 5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

NUMAS IGRA Gallery
Hochstrasse 70
CH - 4053 Basel

www.numasigra.com

Plastic Time – Performance with the Audience
With Abril Padilla

August 29 // 3:00 p.m. @kunsttagebasel

The audience is invited to discover the sounds of the plastics that surround us in everyday life.
Between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., the artist will collaborate with visitors at various times to create “plastic music.”
This is a sonic exploration of a material we’d love to recycle or break down. Come by, explore, play along—and maybe we’ll finally manage to say goodbye to it.

Abril Padilla – sound artist, performer (abrilpadilla.net)
@grenztherapie

Lust*Art: Space Eggs
an Exhibition by KASKO and Lust*Streifen Film Festival during Kunsttage Basel

Mit | With Joaquina Salgado, Noa Steiner, Collective Office (mara ittel, isa weber, cris e. fidelis, ros del olmo and dagmar dirkx), Lean Rüegg (Lean Rüegg, Odesa Varen, Pam Meyer), Lenn Bjoerk Jo and Ulaş Ekin Toprak. Kuratiert durch | Curated by Pietro Vitali & Soraya Oriana Blumer

Fr 28.8.26 | 13–22 h
Öffnungszeiten | Opening Hours

Sa 29.8.26–So 30.8.26 | 11–20 h
Öffnungszeiten | Opening Hours

Fr 28.8.26 | 17–22h
Would you like to wear my coat? – A queer bar
Opening and interactive installation by Brussels-based office collective

Sa 29.8.26 | 19–19:30 h
the bones you break, bend in revenge
Performance by Lean Rüegg

So 30.8.26 | 18–19 h
wall is the horizon
Performance by Lenn Bjoerk Jo and Ulaş Ekin Toprak

DE
Lust*Art 2026 präsentiert unter dem Titel «Space Eggs» eine zarte Konstellation aus Queerness und introspektiven Gedanken. Mit «Space Eggs» beziehen wir uns auf die Existenz einer queeren Person in einer fremden Welt und die vielen Möglichkeiten, sich mit einer schützenden Hülle zu umgeben: das Gefühl einer schimmernden, gelatinösen, sich verwandelnden Eierschale; eine formbare, glitzernde Blase um die eigenen Gefühle herum - um den Körper, um die eigene Ästhetik. Eine materielle Utopie, die die Identität schützt, in der die Entscheidung, was man hereinlässt – oder durchscheinen lässt –, ganz allein beim einem Selbst liegt.

Das Kunstwerk «Would you like to wear my coat? – A queer bar» des Kollektivs Office fungiert als Schleuse und lädt die Besucher dazu ein, miteinander zu reden, zu flirten und zu tanzen und so in die Welt queerer Realitäten einzutauchen. Der Raum öffnet sich dann zu den installativen Werken von Noa Steiner und Joaquina Salgado die das KASKO mit fragilen Beziehungen, textile Intimitäten und digitale Persönlichkeiten beleben sowie ausserirdisch anmutende Raumschiffe heraufbeschwören, die die Besucher*innen in eine alternative Realität entführen.

Space Eggs wird dann auch von der Sprache performativer Interventionen getragen. Lean Rüegg vertritt das Teilen von verkörpertem Wissen und Intimitäten als Strategie des politischen Widerstands. Mit Briefen und Performances inszenieren die Künstler:innen Lenn Bjoerk und Ulas Ekin Toprak eine Lesung, die von der harten Realität der Isolation und den Angriffen auf Geflüchtete, Queers und Transgender-Personen erzählt. Ihre Arbeit, die eine dystopische Machtübernahme durch rechte Kräfte imaginiert und sich vorstellt, dass queere Körper von der Erde verbannt und als Flüchtlinge im Weltraum bewertet werden, hat die Idee von Space Eggs direkt beeinflusst. Der Verweis wird zu einem Akt des Widerstands und einer Aneignung des Weltraums selbst: Unsere Hüllen sind zart-harte Gefässe für Überleben, Identität und Trotz.

EN
Lust*Art 2026, under the title Space Eggs, will showcase a tender constellation of queerness and introspective thoughts. With Space Eggs, we refer to the existence of a queer person in an alien world and the many ways one surrounds oneself with a protective shell: the feeling of a jelly-like, shimmering, morphing eggshell; a plasmable, glistening bubble around one’s feelings, body, and appearance. A material utopia that safeguards identity, where the choice of what to let in – or shimmer through – rests entirely within the self.

Acting as a sluice, the artwork «Would you like to wear my coat? – A queer bar» by collective Office invites visitors to talk, flirt and dance together entering into the realm of queer realities. The space then opens up to the installation works by Noa Steiner and Joaquina Salgado, which enliven KASKO with fragile relationships, textile intimacies, and digital personas, while also conjuring up otherworldly-looking spaceships that transport visitors into a galactic reality.

«Space Eggs» is also underpinned by the language of performative interventions. Lean Rüegg advocates for the sharing of embodied knowledge and intimacies as a strategy of political resistance. Through letters and performances, artists Lenn Bjoerk and Ulas Ekin Toprak stage a reading that recounts the harsh reality of isolation and the attacks on refugees, queer people, and transgender individuals. Their work—which imagines a dystopian takeover by right-wing forces and envisions queer bodies being banished from Earth and classified as refugees in space—has directly influenced the concept of Space Eggs. This reference becomes an act of resistance and a reclamation of space itself: our shells are delicate yet resilient vessels for survival, identity, and defiance.

Friday–Sunday, August 28–30, 2026
In the large garage at the Franck Areal

At the Kunsttage Basel, Visarte Region Basel is spotlighting works by its longest-standing members: Sämi Buri, Regula Huegli, Rose-Marie Joray-Muchenberger, Dadi Wirz, Rene Küng, Antje Ladewig, Hans Rémond, Ursula Salathé, Elisabeth Stalder, and Romy Weber.

The works will be on display at the Franck Areal, a former industrial site with a raw atmosphere. Established artists’ practices meet new formats, including performances, a youth project, and a cross-generational panel discussion. Conversations with the exhibiting artists will provide deeper insight into their art in the present day. We also pay tribute to our late members: Peter Baer, Sämi Eugster, Ezio Sormani, Regula Suter-Räber, and Christian Wittwer.

At the Kunsttage Basel, Visarte Region Basel is deliberately focusing on its oldest members, aged 85–97, and turning this into a multifaceted project exploring time, experience, and the present. Names such as Sämi Buri, Regula Huegli, Rose-Marie Joray-Muchenberger, Dadi Wirz, Rene Küng, Antje Ladewig, Hans Rémond, Ursula Salathé, Elisabeth Stalder, and Romy Weber represent artistic practices that have evolved over decades and have helped shape—and continue to shape—the regional art scene. Their current works are on display at the Franck-Areal—a former industrial site with raw, authentic architecture—in a large former fire station garage.

Artist and poet Birgit Kempker conducts interviews with the participating artists, exploring their current work, their approach to time, and the continuity and changes within the artistic process. The interviews are available as audio stations throughout the exhibition.

The exhibition is complemented by a tribute to the five members who passed away in 2025: In consultation with their families, their artistic contributions are incorporated, either in the form of works or as a tribute to their artistic biographies. These contributions come from Christian Wittwer, artist (*1954), Samuel Eugster, artist (b. 1938), Ezio Sormani, architect (b. 1944), Peter Baer, artist (b. 1936), and honorary member Regula Suter-Räber, art historian (b. 1937), form a distinct layer of remembrance and highlight artistic life’s works that continue to resonate to this day.

Concept, coordination, and curation: Melanie Kuratli and Sabine Gysin.

Opening:
Friday, August 28, 2026, at 3:00 p.m.
With a welcome, introduction, and guided tour

A Journey Through the Secret Archive of Traces:
Saturday, August 29, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Intergenerational workshop for children ages 7–14.
Children may also participate when accompanied by an adult as a pair.

Led by Flavia Spichtig. Free of charge.
Registration: info@visarte-basel.ch
In collaboration with K’Werk Bildschule, School of Design Basel

LEGS:
Saturday, August 29, 2026, from 2:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Visionary Matinee:
Sunday, August 30, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., with refreshments
GENERATIONS – COMPASS, a panel discussion and conversation with the audience

Opening hours:
Friday, August 28, from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 29, from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, August 30, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Location:
Garage at the Franck Areal
Horburgstrasse 105, in the inner courtyard
Entrance at the corner of Horburgstrasse and Riehenring
4057 Basel

You’re warmly invited to the opening of Secret Garden at Remise on Friday, 12 June 2026, 6–10 pm, presenting a series of new paintings by Prague-based artist Olga Krykun 🌻🌱✨

A longing for joy and sensuality, a touch of melancholy, and memories of figures and characters that animated the stories of our childhood: these are the ingredients Olga Krykun infuses into her paintings.

For her exhibition, Secret Garden, on view from June 12 to August 31, 2026, in Basel, the Prague-based artist has created a handful of new works on canvas. Soft and glowy sunflowers, together with stars that radiate light and hope, await to tap into our subconscious as they transform Remise’s exhibition space into a greenhouse where imagination, emotions, and dreams grow freely.

Remise is a botanical art space – a retreat for artistic speculations and erratic practices – foreseen and run by Sylvan Lanz in Basel.

Olga Krykun – Secret Garden.
Opening: 12 June 2026, from 6 to 10 pm.
Open during Art Basel Week or by appointment.
Running until 31 August 2026.

📍
Remise
Bärenfelserstrasse 20 (Backyard)
4057 Basel

Text: Claudio Vogt

ROOTS AND MIRRORS
Dialogues between Metal, Light and Life

Roots and Mirrors presents the sculptural work of Mexican artist Mario Castellanos, whose metal sculptures are inspired by the visual and symbolic traditions of Oaxaca. Animals, plants and totems emerge as powerful yet enigmatic forms that connect memory, nature and culture.

During his residency at FABRIKculture in Hegenheim, Mario Castellanos collaborates with artist Katherine Newton. Sculpture, light, sound and performance enter into dialogue, opening new perspectives on movement, space and perception.

The exhibition also has a personal dimension: the two artists are partners and are expecting a child. Their different cultural backgrounds and experimental approaches come together in a shared artistic language.

The exhibition is accompanied by poetry from Oaxacan poet and writer Natalia Toledo, whose texts, written in both Spanish and Zapotec, weave together nature, memory and identity.

All works exhibited are available for purchase.

Programme
🪨 Opening
August 22, from 4 PM
Music and reading

🪨 Special event
August 29, from 4 PM
Music and performances

with Samia Chancrin, Mario Castellanos, Sasha Katsalap, Agnes Leclaire, Fernando Manassero, James Newton,
Katherine Newton and Paks

🪨 Special event
September 5
Food, film and music

🪨 Closing
September 6

🪨 Opening hours
Saturday + Sunday, 11 AM–8 PM
Sunday, 3 PM guided tours

🪨 Location
FABRIKculture
Rue de Bâle 60
68220 Hegenheim
France

Sunday
6 September
2026
11 AM - 5 PM

The first stage of our crowdfunding campaign will end with a le ventre celebration:

A concert by French singer-songwriter Wooden Wolf!
Bar and Snacks!
Tours of the house, presentation of the intermediate stages of the renovation and an exhibition of historical finds from the house.

Come by! We’d love to see you there!

City SALTS: Lucas Erin – J’arrive!
Solo exhibition in the Cabane
15 Jun – 11 Sep 2026

With an intervention by Daisy Lambert

Opening reception: 18 June 2025, 6–10 pm

During Art Basel Week, all exhibitions will be open daily from noon to 6 pm.

The opening takes place as part of the City SALTS Garden Party and features a live concert by The Choolers Division at 8 pm, as well as food and drinks.

Lucas Erin’s solo exhibition «J’arrive!» at City SALTS transforms the Cabane in the garden into an immersive installation. The Cabane originates from Sol Calero’s 2015 transformation of the former garage into a Caribbean house-like environment, establishing a spatial and social framework later reconfigured as an exhibition space. Erin reactivates this structure, unfolding it as a new narrative shaped by his Caribbean heritage. Lucas Erin is the recipient of the Manor Art Prize Waadt 2026.

J’arrive! is curated by Benedikt Wyss and Samuel Leuenberger, and made possible through the support of the Abteilung Kulturförderung Kanton Baselland.

City SALTS: Shamiran Istifan – Xx, Hekate
Solo exhibition in the Box
15 Jun – 11 Sep 2026

Opening reception: 18 June 2026, 6–10 pm

During Art Basel Week, all exhibitions will be open daily from noon to 6 pm.

The opening takes place as part of the City SALTS Garden Party and features a live concert by The Choolers Division at 8 pm, as well as food and drinks.

Shamiran Istifan’s solo exhibition «xx, Hekate» at City SALTS unfolds in our Box. Hekate – a figure from Greek mythology associated with thresholds, transitions, and states of becoming – serves as the point of departure. A series of spells authored and practiced by the artist acts as the project’s organising principle. Addressed to people, objects, memories, and everyday circumstances, these acts of transformation materialise throughout the works. Istifan lives and works in Zurich (CH) and is the recipient of a Swiss Art Award in 2025 and the Manor Art Prize Aarau 2026.

xx, Hekate is curated by Benedikt Wyss and Samuel Leuenberger, and made possible through the support of the Abteilung Kulturförderung Kanton Baselland.

City SALTS: Osama Al Rayyan & Kelly Tissot – Marvelous Persona
Solo exhibition in the Garage
15 Jun – 11 Sep 2026

Opening reception: 18 June 2025, 6–10 pm

During Art Basel Week, all exhibitions will be open daily from noon to 6 pm.

The opening takes place as part of the City SALTS garden party and features a live concert by The Choolers Division at 8 pm, as well as food and drinks.

Syrian-French, Basel-based artist couple Osama Al Rayyan and Kelly Tissot’s Marvelous Persona transforms the City SALTS Garage into a site-specific installation. Marking their first-ever exhibition as a duo, the project brings together newly produced collaborative works and unfolds as a fragmented narrative shaped by the artists‘ distinct practices. Through sculptures, drawings, and digital prints, framed by a unifying exhibition architecture, Marvelous Persona materialises a fictional character emerging from the intersection of the artists‘ universes, blurring the boundaries between dream and reality.

Marvelous Persona is curated by Benedikt Wyss and Samuel Leuenberger, and made possible through the support of the Abteilung Kulturförderung Kanton Baselland, Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung, and Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt.

Exhibition by Cécile Baumgartner Vizkelety and Matías Serrano Acevedo

Fri, August 28 – Fri, September 18, 2026

OPENING
Thu, August 27, 19 h

ROUND TABLE
Fri, August 28, 19 – 21 h
Subject: Artist Residency Decolonial (E/PT)
with Vandria Borari (Indigenous Artist) and Carolina Brunelli (artistic direction of DOCK)

ARTIST TALK
Sat, August 29, 16 – 18 h
with Cécile Baumgartner Vizkelety & Matías Serrano Acevedo (E/ES)

The art project «Reclaim Regional» is a collaboration between DOCK and Museo de Artes Visuales MAVI UC. It explores questions of belonging, visibility, and cultural diversity, while questioning colonial structures in artist residencies and migration.
As part of a residency in Basel, Swiss artist Cécile Baumgartner Vizkelety and Chilean artist Matías Serrano Acevedo are collaborating. The stay serves as the starting point for a joint artistic research process.

Flowers blooming from our crotches
Inka ter Haar, Maria Mayland, Dominik Geis
16.08.—20.09.2026

Opening: 15.08.2026, 18:00

Flowers Blooming from Our Crotches brings together three artistic positions that repeatedly intersect both thematically and formally. Drawing on (auto-)biographical references, the works—spanning film, video, painting, and graphic art—seek to articulate a sense of powerlessness in the face of the current antifeminist and anti-queer backlash.

The critical examination and deconstruction of masculinity—understood as both a symptom and a structural problem—is set against personal iconographies. These are shaped by subcultural and popular culture, social conditioning, and ongoing negotiations of identity. A shared point of reference is the engagement with (Christian) religion, approached either through personal biography or through art-historical and cultural-historical inquiry.

FRAGMENTS OF CONVERSATION
In cooperation with Atelier Mondial and Kunsttage Basel

Cordial invitation to the vernissage:

Wednesday, August 26, 6 pm

Opening hours:
Thursday/Friday: 11 am – 6 pm
Saturday: 2 – 6 pm
Finissage: Saturday, September 26, 2 – 6 pm

During Kunsttage Basel (27.08. – 30.08.2026):
Thursday – Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm

Artists: Sixte Kakinda, Mónica Iturribarría, Keabetswe Boccomino and Kwaku Dapaah Opoku, Till Langschied, Livia Kern and Remo Schluep

Fragments of Conversation brings together works by Sixte Kakinda, Mónica Iturribarría, Keabetswe Boccomino and Kwaku Dapaah Opoku, Till Langschied, Livia Kern and Remo Schluep – artists who have all taken part in the Atelier Mondial exchange program.

The exhibition explores how communication remains possible even under difficult cultural, political or personal circumstances – and what fragments of encounter, memory and understanding emerge from this. Many of the works navigate the space between personal experience and social reality.

Mónica Iturribarría founded an embroidery club in Oaxaca after her brother lost his life due to drug-related psychosis; for her, embroidering together becomes a form of mourning and solidarity. Sixte Kakinda from Kampala explores the line as a boundary and a space of encounter; in his textile series, he reinterprets the flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo using jute and embroidery, as an ever-evolving archive of collective identity. Till Langschied examines, through sculpture, video and installation, the alienation within globalized flows of goods and the fragile relationship between analogue and virtual spaces. Cultural Mediator Keabetswe Boccomino presents "Order from the Loom," a code-based loom by Ghanaian artist Kwaku Dapaah Opoku, exploring fast fashion, time and craft knowledge. Finally, in their video recordings from Okinawa, Livia Kern and Remo Schluep explore how dance can revitalise care for community and environment.

The exhibition is conceived as an open space for dialogue: a collection of gestures, movements, signs and stories that demonstrate that exchange continues even where language, politics or geographical distance reach their limits.

Curated by: Isabel Balzer and Alexandra Stäheli
Location: Artstübli – Kunst & Kultur, Steinentorberg 28, 4051 Basel

Opening hours:
Thursday/Friday, 11 am – 6 pm; Saturday, 2 – 6 pm
Finissage: Saturday, 26 September, 2 – 6 pm

During Kunsttage Basel (27.08. – 30.08.2026):

Thursday – Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm

Programme Kunsttage Basel
Every day during the Kunsttage, guided tour at 4 pm, loom demonstration at 4.30 pm

In collaboration with Kunsthalle Mulhouse. We would like to thank Christoph Merian Foundation and Südkulturfonds for its support.

Market-place
Linn Nora Henz
21.8.–3.10.2026

Opening: Friday 21.8. from 6pm

Stretcher
Auf dem Wolf 11
CH-4052 Basel

Mon & Sat 1-6pm
www.strrretcher.ch

Kunsttage Basel Weekend (28. - 30.8.)
Open from 11am - 6pm

Isaak Altinyay
TonBildTonBildTonBild

opening:
SA 29. August 2026 at 4 pm
with Soundperformance

open:
SAT, 4 – 6 pm
and by appointment

Isaak Altinyay is a young visual artist and designer. He first gained recognition during his studies and exhibitions at the Haute école des arts du Rhin (HEAR) in Mulhouse, where he pursued a degree in art. Although he is not classified as a traditional painter with a long institutional career, his work has been featured in notable group exhibitions. He is working at the intersections of material, sound, and image.

Valuables
Natacha Donzé, Matthias Liechti, Boris Rebetez, Renée Steffen, Raphael Stucky, Li Tavor, Babette Walder
28.08.2026–31.10.2026
Opening: 28.08.2026 18–22h
Magazine Release & Hammer Band: 31.10.2026 11–17h

Kunsttage Basel: 28.08.2026 13–18h 29.&30.08.2026 11–18h

Go closer – John Berger Through His Art
September 12 – October 31, 2026

In 2026, numerous events around the world will commemorate John Berger (1926–2017): the British writer, art critic, painter and screenwriter, who combined Marxist social analysis with art and literary criticism, would have turned 100 this year. Conferences, symposia and new translations of his works will document the significant influence of this extraordinary man. As a draughtsman, screenwriter and storyteller, John Berger nourished his critical thinking throughout his life through his creative work. He moved freely between different media and never paid heed to the boundaries between genres. His early training at art college led him to side more with artists than with institutional thinkers. This aspect of his artistic output is less well known to the general public, and this is where the exhibition comes in.
The multimedia exhibition brings together documentary films, drawings, paintings and texts by the British artist and thinker. The rooms of the villa are organised around the themes that play a central role in his work – the world of labour, the plight of farmers, dialogue and collaboration, resistance and the struggle for the emancipation of peoples, as well as personal encounters and correspondence with artists and friends – thus offering a multifaceted insight into the free-thinking mind of John Berger, who spent his life constructing a social history of art that was both intimate and universal.
The chosen title ‘Go Closer – John Berger Through his Art’ underlines the central aim that John Berger consistently pursued through various media: to draw closer to people and their activities, to observe and describe them in order to understand their characteristics.
Conveying a unique creative mindset and a resolute political stance is therefore at the heart of this project, which is aimed in particular at the younger generation, who can engage with the subject matter through various dialogue formats.

Curated by:
Yves Berger
Isaac Klotz White
Franziska Stern-Preisig

Roy Lichtenstein Weekend Workshop Series

In joyful response to the collection of Roy Lichtenstein prints on show 22.8.2026 – 14.3.2027 at Kunstmuseum Basel, druckwerk Basel presents a series of 1 and 2-day experimental printmaking workshops.

Pop motifs & printmaking techniques / 1-day workshop
In the spirit of the collaboration between Graphicstudio and Roy Lichtenstein in the production of the Brushstroke Figures series, this workshop is an invitation to explore various printmaking processes.

By rendering pop motifs - the dots, diagonals and brushstrokes that can be seen in the Graphicstudio prints - with different printmaking techniques, participants can gain an understanding of each technique's differences, in turn, discovering their potential.

Let’s Ben Day! / 2-day workshop
Patented in the 1880s, Ben Day ‘mechanical tints’ were tools for illustrators to fast-track the execution of lining, shading, hatching and most famously, stippling a.k.a. dots. Stylised and magnified these marks became key components of Roy Lichtenstein’s pop vocabulary.

Using the collagraph method & found materials participants will build an own library of shading mediums. They will investigate the creation of enhanced patterns by overprinting the plates and through colour juxtaposition. Then they will explore ways to use these findings to create images.

Program
Sun 13. September Pop motifs & printmaking techniques / 1-day workshop / 120 CHF
Sat 17. / Sun 18. October Let’s Ben Day! / 2-day workshop / 240 CHF
Sat 21. / Sun 22. November Let’s Ben Day! / 2-day workshop / 240 CHF
Sat 12. December Pop motifs & printmaking techniques / 1-day workshop / 120 CHF

11 am to 4 pm each day
Course leader: Lucinda Tanner
Course language: English/German
Fees include inks and consumables, but exclude paper
Suitable for all levels of experience
Registrations: office@druckwerk.ch

druckwerk Basel
Werkraum Warteck pp
2. floor,Burgweg 7
4048 Basel
www.druckwerk.ch

GUIDED TOUR
Roy Lichtenstein Sweet Dreams, Baby!
22. August 2026 – 14. March 2027
Kunstmuseum Basel, Neubau

All workshop participants are invited to be guided through the exhibition by the curator, Fabienne Ruppen. The tours take place on Wednesday 14. October and Wednesday 18. November at 18:00hr. The tour is free of charge.

Roman Signer
Platz ist in der kleinsten Hütte. Für was? Zum Fliegen natürlich.
Permanent Installation since 07.07.2018

Roman Signer (b. 1938, St Gallen) defines himself as a sculptor – a sculptor, however, who expands his sculptures through the dimension of time. His happenings and installations, full of lively wit, have been redefining sculpture since the 1970s. By integrating time, energy, acceleration and change into the sculptural process, he finds new ways of consistently and playfully exploring the possibilities of this intrinsically static medium. The results of his explorations are often transient works, documented in photographic series, film or video footage. Signer’s most important materials are the four elements of fire, earth, water and air. Their composition and their quality are explored with impressive precision and endurance. For example, he lets hole-riddled kayaks fill up with water, catapults furniture across the room, or lays a kilometre-long fuse across eastern Switzerland.

Artachment, the unusual space initiated by Raphael Bottazzini, inspired the artist not only to participate in the anniversary exhibition, but also to conduct an in-situ intervention, or ‘happening’, as Signer refers to his work. There is space in the hut, and Signer occupies it: before the opening and without an audience, he enters equipped with protective goggles and a helmet. Inside, the artist fits a so-called quadcopter[1] with a brush drenched in blue paint. He then navigates this arrangement of flying object and painting utensil through the house and uses it to paint blue dots on the ceiling. The whole action is not without risk, which is why the artist dons the protective gear. What remains of the activity is the painted ceiling and the equipment that is left behind. The artist defines the finished work as an installation: lying on a shelf in the house, the objects reference the activity that took place there. As the public enter, they put together the pieces of the event. The narrative of this small tale is reflected in the title of the work: Platz ist in der kleinsten Hütte. Für was? Zum Fliegen natürlich (There is room in the smallest of huts. For what? For flying, obviously.). It is a short dialogue between the artist and a fictional counterpart that explains everything.

With the simple gesture of painting dots on the ceiling, Signer references the celebrated genre of the ceiling fresco, which is characterised by great artistic skill. To further interpret the scene, Roman Signer’s ceiling painting elevates the small house into more than a hut: the blue dots convert it into a chapel of art.

* What is popularly known as a ‘drone’ is in technical jargon a quadcopter (a four-rotor, remote-controlled helicopter). The term ‘drone’ is not heard among model aviation enthusiasts, since it refers to equipment that can be used for killing and war. The object used by Roman Signer for flying and painting, however, is a work tool, or as he says himself: “A peaceful thing with a flying brush.”

Text: Lena Friedli
Fotos: Claude Gasser
www.romansigner.ch

THYLACINE - Mischa Düblin, Fabian Unold
Schein
Since 07.07.2018 – Permanent installation

Mischa Düblin (b. 1973, Basel) and Fabian Unold (b. 1977, Zurich) have been working together since 2004. The artistic duo realises site- and context-specific works under the name Thylacine. Not limiting themselves to one medium or form, the duo’s situation-specific approach tends towards installations and the performative. Games with the audience or the involvement of other performers open up further possibilities.

Social structures and economic mechanisms are at the heart of Thylacine’s interest. Their art doesn’t aim for the white cube, it doesn’t function intrinsically or by itself, but invariably in relation to the real world. Critically, politically, and always with a good dose of humour, they examine balances of power, and make these events their own. While their art is implemented concisely and consistently, it deliberately leaves room for interpretation. The authentic and persuasive involvement of the two artists results from a content-related but also concretely physical appropriation. In this vein, they expose themselves to the direct jet of a snow machine for the 2007 work Schweigeminute (A Minute’s Silence), or they simultaneously pee their pants for the 2008 performance Stille Wasser (Still Waters) on the subject of fear.

Thylacine’s projects, performances and installations only ever happen once, but they have appeared twice at Artachment. In 2008, Mischa and Fabian were invited by Raphael Bottazzini to realise the very first project ever carried out in the former customs house at Kleinhüningen harbour. After careful observation of the site, the duo gave the space, which was at the time abandoned and frequently visited by vandals, a resident: they installed a life-sized puppet to make it look like someone sitting in the space was angling for fish through the window in the back wall. Through its new inhabitant, the space suddenly became accommodating, and a connection to the outside world was established. The situation was subtle (there was no opening and no publicity) and at the same time so realistic that passers-by who spotted the figure inside called the police.

Thylacine returned to Artachment in 2018 to exhibit in dialogue with Roman Signer. For their newly developed work Schein (Appearance), marking the 10th anniversary of the art space, they suspended a theatre spotlight from a tree next to the building and equipped it with a timer, which switched the light on and off in a predefined rhythm. A spotlight usually illuminates an attraction; a star performs in it, something important is given a stage. But the spotlight installed by Thylacine apparently misses its mark. The light beam illuminates neither the house celebrating its anniversary, Roman Signer’s installation, nor the public. The only connection to the house is the power cable. Other than that, the artistic intervention remains essentially immaterial. Schein illuminates a stage that remains empty, a non-place, a gap, and thus becomes a strange and refreshingly nebulous presence.

Text: Lena Friedli
Fotos: Claude Gasser
www.thylacine.ws

Raphael Bottazzini
Bank & Stapel
Since January 1, 2023 – ongoing

The bench does not pay tribute; it displays names in all their diversity—the diversity that society produces. The bench has been active since 2023 and follows the principle that every person deserves to be named. One of the three boards is replaced each month. The removed boards are set aside, continuously forming a stack in the Artachment exhibition space in Basel. The names are selected by various individuals—who do not coordinate with one another—and incorporated into the work. Through this process, the bench becomes a repository of names and follows no ideological orientation. The curatorial work is limited solely to the composition of two names on each board. The greater apparent arbitrariness of the name combinations arises from the monthly addition of a new board. In the process, the new names mix with the old ones, continuously creating new constellations across the entire bench.
The company Mitte is not part of the work and has no say in it.
Raphael Bottazzini

What is a name? Can a name be classified without context? What tensions are revealed and generated by *Bank&Stapel*? Can a work of art on private property truly be private if it is visible to the public? Can one speak of a juxtaposition of two names when there are a total of six names on the bench? Would the weighting of a committee