Cao Fei, Cécile B. Evans, and Praneet Soi are among the picks

Art Basel Online Viewing Rooms: Unlimited curator Giovanni Carmine shares his favorites

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Art Basel debuted its digital platform, the <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/viewing-rooms">Online Viewing Rooms</a>, with 235 galleries showing over 2,000 pieces. To help our readers navigate its virtual aisles, curators were invited to preview the offering and share what caught their eye. Here, Giovanni Carmine, curator of the Unlimited sector and director of the Kunst Halle St. Gallen shares his highlights.&nbsp;

Cao Fei, RMB City: A Second Life City Planning N.4, 2007Cao Fei’s seminal project&nbsp;RMB City deals with VR and the way art can use the possibilities offered by the digital era. The fictional city she built in Second Life is a fascinating space – a surrealist utopia and visionary community-building experiment. Presented by<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1458/Vitamin-Creative-Space" target="_blank">&nbsp;Vitamin Creative Space, Beijing</a>.

Cécile B. Evans, A Man in Progress, 2017Situated between digital-image processing and traditional puppet theater, this collection of mysterious props was used by the artist in a larger project that involved a television show about a progressive housing estate. Cécile B. Evans uses different techniques to realize the elements of the work, which deals with the construction of reality. Presented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1112/Galerie-Emanuel-Layr" target="_blank">Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna and Rome.</a>

Praneet Soi, Piggyback, 2017Praneet Soi’s painting depicts a simple gesture: a balancing act between playfulness and aggression, trust and power. Kept formally reduced and technically mastered with elegance by the artist, it’s a striking work made even more fascinating by the deep humanity of the action caught within it. Presented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1363/Experimenter" target="_blank">Experimenter, Kolkata</a>.

Leelee Chan, Sunset Capsule #4, 2019With Sunset Capsule #4 (2019), Leelee Chan has created a sculpture that reshapes objects used on construction sites in Hong Kong into a freestanding lamp. Through her work, Chan directs our attention toward elements of daily life that we often miss, but also makes us aware of the possibility of altering reality by following our creative needs. Presented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/8469/Capsule-Shanghai" target="_blank">Capsule Shanghai</a>.

Nam June Paik,&nbsp;Dasan Jeong Yak-yong, 1997This wonderful late work by the master of video art pays tribute to the great Korean thinker Dasan Jeong Yak-yong. Filled with references to Asian culture, the anthropomorphic video-sculpture impresses as a typical work from the artist but also because of its simple beauty. Presented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1393/Leeahn-Gallery" target="_blank">Leeahn Gallery, Seoul and&nbsp;Daegu</a>.

Will Benedict, Degrees of Disgust, 2019

	A Will Benedict video is always adventurous, a good bad trip that mixes contemporary culture with capitalism references, fetishism, and pop music. His latest takes us on a surprising ride that addresses self-optimization and the position of women in our society. Presented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1340/Balice-Hertling" target="_blank">Balice Hertling, Paris</a>.

The Online Viewing Rooms launched on March 18, and closed on March 25, 2020, but collectors can still contact galleries using the contact details on the individual gallery page. Information about the next edition will be released soon.Giovanni Carmine (born 1975, Bellinzona, Switzerland) is director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (www.k9000.ch) since 2007. He has curated shows by David Lamelas, Ryan Gander, Mariana Castillo Deball, Hassan Khan, Petrit Halilaj, Sylvia Sleigh, Dani Gal, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Jill Magid, Andrea Büttner or the group exhibition ‘The Darknet’, among others. In 2011 he was artistic coordinator of ILLUMInations, the 54th edition of the Biennale di Venezia and co-editor of the catalog and in 2013 he curated the Swiss Pavillion at the same biennial. He contributed to various magazines (Kunst-Bulletin, Frieze, Art-Review, Parkett), published in catalog and edited several publications like PSYOP Post 9/11 Leaflets and CEAU (both with Christoph Büchel). He was President of the Swiss Federal Art Commission (2017&mdash;2019) and is a member of the board of the Istituto Svizzero in Rome. He is a curator of Art Basel Unlimited and currently lives and works between Zurich and St.Gallen.&nbsp;

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