Discover how these new talents are tackling some of today’s most urgent issues, from institutional bias to media manipulation

Emily McDermott

Five emerging artists to watch in ‘OVR:2021’

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In addition to household names like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8104/Tacita-Dean">Tacita Dean</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11710/Elmgreen-Dragset">Elmgreen &amp; Dragset</a>, many galleries in ‘<a href="https://artbasel.com/ovr" target="_blank">OVR:2021</a>’ are focusing on emerging artists. These fresh voices are finding new ways to explore today’s zeitgeist, addressing topics ranging from interspecies relationships to the carceral state. Here are five to keep an eye out for.

Arturo Kameya <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2055/Grimm">Grimm</a>, Amsterdam and New York City Through a practice spanning painting, sculpture, film, printmaking, and installation, the Lima-born and Amsterdam-based artist Arturo Kameya (b. 1984) puts old and new narratives under scrutiny. His recent series ‘Who can afford to feed more ghosts’ (2021) is rooted in two specific events. The first is that of a British immigrant to Peru who was accused of witchcraft and died in 1913. Eighty years later, a ‘vampirologist’ declared on a talk show that the woman would resurrect and countless viewers tuned in to watch. (She did not.) The second is the story of a Peruvian mayor who was arrested for disregarding the lockdown and associated curfew during the pandemic. When police caught him with friends in a wood workshop, he was lying inside a coffin, pretending to be dead. Photographs of the scene went viral. In paintings and installations, Kameya intertwines references to these two stories, pointing not only to their absurdity but also to the larger cultural beliefs surrounding death and resurrection as well as media manipulation. In this work and his overarching practice, he speaks to the multitude of contradictory perspectives and the plasticity of memory and history themselves.

Jennifer Rose Sciarrino <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2599/Daniel-Faria-Gallery">Daniel Faria Gallery</a>, Toronto Canadian artist Jennifer Rose Sciarrino (b. 1983) explores the entanglements of various living species through sculpture, video, and installation. Finding inspiration in the writings of Ursula K. Le Guin and Donna Haraway, she is both critical and curious about human intervention in natural processes, imagining a future where human, plant, and animal organisms can come together in varying degrees of cohabitation, communication, and care. The sculptures that feature in a new series titled ‘Buoy’ (2021) reference the various sizes and shapes of yeast cells, which live inside and outside the human body and can be equally beneficial or harmful to human life. Sciarrino carves enlarged ‘cells’ from rock and places them within metal-and-mesh baskets shaped like diatoms (single-cell algae). Humans may try to control other species but boundaries are always porous and other life-forms can never be fully contained.

Wang Ziquan <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2169/MadeIn-Gallery">MadeIn Gallery</a>, Shanghai Wang Ziquan’s interest lies in the Internet and virtual worlds. In a range of relief works and videos, he explores the threshold between virtuality and reality, between the supposedly distinct online and in real life. For his series ‘Control Interface’ (2021), Wang (b. 1993, Liaoning, China) creates fictional characters using computer software and then digitally deconstructs the figures, disassembling and flattening their bodily parts. The resulting images, with recognizable hands, torsos, arms, et al, are printed onto sheets of aluminum. Affixed on top of the discombobulated figures are transparent pieces of acrylic engraved with wireframes (visual guides that represent the skeletal framework of a website) and bones that correspond to the body parts beneath. In the eye of a computer, the ‘real’ images are not the figures themselves but rather these fractal engravings.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/40914/Sable-Elyse-Smith">Sable Elyse Smith</a> <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1573/JTT">JTT</a>, New York City The New York City-based interdisciplinary artist and writer Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles) works with photography, neon, text, appropriated imagery, sculpture, and video installation to intertwine ideas surrounding language, violence, and pop culture. A recurring motif in her work is the carceral state: She uses surveillance tape in video work, standard-issue prison furniture in sculptures, and drawing material given to children exposed to the justice system in large-scale two-dimensional works. In a series titled ‘Coloring Books’ (2017–), games like connect-the-dots are paired with clichés about who does and doesn’t belong in a courtroom. Smith manipulates such imagery and texts, pointing to the multitude of injustices inherent in the justice system.

Michael Igwe <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/29652/Rele-Gallery">Rele Gallery</a>, Lagos and Los Angeles In his ethereal paintings, Nigerian artist Michael Igwe (b. 1994) aims to capture the essence of human thoughts and beings. Figures are thus rendered in dark, moody colors, often with abstracted faces and bodies. In a recent series, ‘Between Extremes’ (2021), he specifically investigates the way the body mediates across different spaces. Human forms appear in various poses – some even upside down – against fluid backgrounds, seeming to float in nothingness, in a space devoid of any temporal or spatial understanding. He thus proposes time and space as subjective concepts based on one’s own lived experiences, the lack of concrete visual references allowing each to conjure their own understanding thereof.

Emily McDermott is a writer and editor living in Berlin.Top image:&nbsp;Arturo Kameya,&nbsp;The desert gardeners (detail), 2021. Courtesy of the artist and&nbsp;Grimm, Amsterdam, New York City.

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Discover how these new talents are tackling some of today’s most urgent issues, from institutional bias to media manipulation

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