The collector and curators name their favorites ahead of the 2019 show 

Find out what Chus Martínez, Valeria Napoleone, and Stefanie Hessler are looking out for at Art Basel

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Art Basel's catalog for the 2019 Basel show is now&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/artworks?showIds=751" target="_blank">live</a>. Find out what curators&nbsp;Chus Martínez and Stefanie Hessler and&nbsp;collector Valeria Napoleone are looking out for.&nbsp;

I am looking forward to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/30329/Ad-Minoliti" target="_blank">Ad Minoliti</a> in the Statements sector. I have known her work for many years, and admire her surprising way of understanding painting as a medium where we can reflect on colors and figures and how they cannot escape gender and politics. And in the Unlimited sector I would invite everyone to pay close attention to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7881/Andrea-Bowers" target="_blank">Andrea Bowers</a>' installation 'Open Secret', which examines the evolution of the #metoo movement The participation of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6992/VALIE-EXPORT" target="_blank">VALIE EXPORT</a> in Unlimited will be surprising and very timely. I have been following her work for decades and I hope the audience will discover in her language new ways to engage with performance and gender questions. It has been a very long time since I have seen one of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10183/Alicia-Framis" target="_blank">Alicia Framis</a>' projects. She set the tone &mdash; already more than twenty years ago &mdash; in talking about wearable technologies and ways of interacting in environments that were conceived as social design settings. And, of course, I am very much looking forward to&nbsp;Samuel Leuenberger's&nbsp;program for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/basel/exhibitors#31673" target="_blank">Parcours</a>. This year I am also very interested in how&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/news/julieta-aranda-art-basel-conversations-2019" target="_blank">Julieta Aranda</a> has conceived the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/basel/conversations-show" target="_blank">Conversations</a> program. This part of Art Basel is especially relevant to me, as not only does it show the visions of those making art and how they reflect on the (difficult) conditions we are facing, but also it is free to the public.

Head of the Institute of Art of the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design, Basel

Chus Martínez

I’m excited to see mature influential artists with such diversity of language taking over space in the Unlimited sector. They are all the first generation of artists in my collection. All are very influential to younger generations and have a unique presence. Just listing them one after the other is exciting! <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7866/Monica-Bonvicini" target="_blank">Monica Bonvicini</a>:&nbsp;one of the first artists to enter my collection <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7881/Andrea-Bowers" target="_blank">Andrea Bowers</a><a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7881/Andrea-Bowers" target="_blank"></a>: I have known her work for a while, her intimate, strong, graphite works are my favorite. The recent large flashing light feminist slogans are really special. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6992/VALIE-EXPORT" target="_blank">VALIE EXPORT</a>: a veteran, I crave to see much more of her strong radical feminist work spanning quite a few decades. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7271/Rivane-Neuenschwander" target="_blank">Rivane Neuenschwander</a>: I’m craving to see more of her practice. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7778/Pae-White" target="_blank">Pae White</a>: another artist I wish I see more of. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7258/Helen-Mirra" target="_blank">Helen Mirra</a>: I love her conceptual abstract intimate weaving works. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/45969/Elke-Silvia-Krystufek " target="_blank">Elke Silvia Krystufek</a>: I have known and have been following her work for a long time. The feminist discourse in her practice was out of favour for so long but is still so relevant. I have not seen her work in a long time. <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/search?q=%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8BSable+Elyse+Smith" target="_blank">Sable Elyse Smith</a>: an artist from a younger generation I have been following. Curious to see how she will hold the space.&nbsp;

Collector, London

Valeria Napoleone

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9961/Jonathas-de-Andrade" target="_blank">Jonathas de Andrade's</a> explorations of stereotypes and perpetual prejudicial conceptions of the North-East of Brazil are both humorous and critical. I first learned about his project on the Pernambucan Museu do homem do nordeste (‘Museum of the Northeast Man’) during a studio visit in Recife in 2013 when I was doing research for my show&nbsp;‘Sugar and Speed’&nbsp;at the Museum of Modern Art in the city. I also loved the film The Fish he did for the 2016 Bienal de São Paulo.<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1143/Goodman-Gallery" target="_blank">Kapwani Kiwanga's</a> conflation of fiction and fact creates powerful counter-narratives to hegemonic writings of history. Her afrofuturistic performances are journeys into the past imbued with elements of science fiction and popular culture aimed at undoing colonialism and the belief systems it has fostered.<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10006/Zoe-Leonard" target="_blank">Zoe Leonard's</a> &nbsp;photographs and installations are always beautiful and political, directing our attention to the politics of image making, and how power affects how we see what we see. Her retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York last year was very good and I enjoyed her minimalist show at Hauser &amp; Wirth in London recently. I look forward to seeing what she will do for Unlimited.<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8705/Bunny-Rogers" target="_blank">Bunny Rogers'</a> works feed off social media and the operational structures of online networks. The themes she approaches range from post-humanism to youth culture and adolescent coming of age to violence. She studied in Stockholm at the Royal Institute of Art, where I’m a guest professor, so I’m particularly interested in seeing her work.<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/13714/Cameron-Rowland" target="_blank">Cameron Rowland's</a> conceptual work focuses on the history and current state of structural racism. With his work Disgorgement (2016) that I saw in Anthony Huberman’s brilliantly curated show “Mechanisms” at the CCA Wattis in San Francisco in 2017, Rowland established a trust comprising 90 shares of Aetna, a company which benefited from insuring slave holders’ “human property." The trust will be liquidated if the US government ever grants reparations to the descendants of slaves. Demands thus far have failed and so Rowland's project points to the complexity of working within a flawed system rather than changing it or getting rid of it altogether.<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/40914/Sable-Elyse-Smith" target="_blank">Sable Elyse Smith's</a> work tackles the prison-industrial complex and the violence that is hidden and often goes unnoticed. Her recent work presented by the 1708 Gallery and the For Freedoms – 50 States Initiative, comprised a billboard in the historic neighborhood&nbsp;of Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia. It calls attention to the ongoing racial injustices while referring to the collective strength of a community for action and change.‘<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/9262/Kunsthalle-Basel-Performance?openTime=5829" target="_blank">Geumhyung Jeong</a>’ at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/news/video--kunsthalle-basel-director-elena-filipovic-on-cultivating-the-cutting-edge" target="_blank">Kunsthalle Basel</a> Geumhyung Jeong’s practice negotiates the relationships of human bodies with the objects surrounding them. In the 6th Athens Biennale I co-curated last year, we showed Spa &amp; Beauty Athens (2018), a setting for a performance involving beauty products, plastic mannequins, and brushes. Several videos in the installation explained the process of bristle making while others advertised the advantages of these products to get rid of human hair. Jeong’s work challenges conceptions of the female body, sexuality, and technology in today's exploitative economy.‘Simone Forti’ at Kunsthaus Baselland Simone Forti’s performances, choreographies, and videos have been influential to many artists of a younger generation. Often only requiring minimal props, her performances rethink movement and its mediation, as well as encounters with others. The openness of her work is very impressive and very topical to this day, so I’m excited to see her solo exhibition.

Curator and writer, London/Stockholm

Stefanie Hessler

Born in Spain, Chus Martínez has a background in philosophy and art history. Currently she is the Head of the Institute of Art of the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel, Switzerland. Before she was the Chief Curator at El Museo del Barrio, New York, and dOCUMENTA (13) Head of Department and Member of Core Agent Group. Previously she was Chief Curator at MACBA, Barcelona (2008–11), Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005–08), and Artistic Director of Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2002–05). For the 51st Biennale di Venezia (2005), Martínez curated the National Pavilion of Cyprus, and in 2008 she served as a Curatorial Advisor for the Carnegie International and in 2010 for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo. During her tenure as Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein she curated solo exhibitions of Wilhelm Sasnal among others; and a series of group exhibitions including Pensée Sauvage and The Great Game To Come. She was also the founder of the Deutsche Börse Residency Program for international artists, art writers, and curators.Valeria Napoleone is an art collector and patron to a select number of arts organisations. She is a Trustee of the Contemporary Art Society, the Head of the Development Committee at Studio Voltaire, an Advisory Board member of the Association of Women in the Arts in London. In New York, she sits on the Boards of the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) at NYU, she is a member of the NYU President’s Global Council, and a Gallery Advisory Board member of A.I.R.Stefanie Hessler is a curator and writer, currently based in London and Stockholm. Her work focuses on interdisciplinary processes, close and long-term collaborations with artists and researchers from different fields, and systems at large, be they ecological, economic, or societal. Recent curatorial projects include “Joan Jonas: Moving Off the Land II” at Ocean Space, Venice (2019); the 6th Athens Biennale “ANTI” (2018); and the symposium “Practices of Attention” at the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo (2018). She is a guest professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, and her forthcoming book Prospecting Ocean is published by The MIT Press later this year.

Discover the full 2019 Art Basel in Basel Online Catalog <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/artworks?" target="_blank">here</a>.&nbsp;Chus Martínez will be debating&nbsp;Between Production and Reproduction - Career and Motherhood in the Artworld with&nbsp;Coco Fusco,&nbsp; Nadine Zeidler and Julieta Aranda on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/9204/Artworld-Talk-Between-Production-and-Reproduction-Career-and-Motherhood-in-the-Artworld?openTime=5804" target="_blank">Thursday, June 13th</a>.&nbsp;Valeria Napoleone will speak on the topic of&nbsp;Mind the (Price) Gap - It is a Gender Thing with&nbsp;Helene Weiner, Candice Breitz and Jan Dalley on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/9209/Art-Market-Talk-Mind-the-Price-Gap-It-is-a-Gender-Thing?openTime=5811" target="_blank">Friday June 14th.</a>Stefanie Hessler will be participating in the conversations panel&nbsp;&nbsp;Will Athens Become the New Art Capital of Europe? with&nbsp;George Vamvakidis, Marina Fokidis and&nbsp;Angelo Plessas&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/9211/Creative-Cities-Talk-Will-Athens-Become-the-New-Art-Capital-of-Europe?openTime=5858" target="_blank">Saturday June 15th.</a>Top image:&nbsp;Ad Minoliti, The Foot (detail), 2018 - 2019.