The Brooklyn-based French artist took a sneak peek at ‘OVR: Pioneers’ – read on to discover some of her favorites

Artists on Artists: Julie Curtiss

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In her paintings and sculptures,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/41706/Julie-Curtiss" target="_blank">Julie Curtiss</a> (b. 1982) explores&nbsp;the female body and psyche through a fusion of figurative, humorous, and&nbsp;uncanny elements. Art Basel asked the artist to preview ‘OVR: Pioneers’ and share a few of her highlights.‘In the context of a fair, I find it easier to engage with artists I’m familiar with because I have a broader knowledge of the pieces. So the works I’ve selected are by artists whose practices I already know.‘To start,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9635/Tala-Madani" target="_blank">Tala Madani</a>’s work always has a dark humor that’s really absurd, which I like. There’s something a bit surrealistic, in the most superficial sense of the term, and her paintings remind me of political cartoons. She’s very effective in conveying what she wants to with very few gestures. I like all of her works [in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1051/303-Gallery" target="_blank">303 Gallery</a>’s presentation], so I picked this one [Banana is Done Speaking (2021)] at random. I don’t understand it at all – I have no idea what she wanted to say, it just makes me laugh. A banana is always funny, for some reason. And that’s part of what makes her works so good – they’re very open. Anyone can project whatever they want onto them.&nbsp;

‘<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7066/Joyce-Pensato" target="_blank">Joyce Pensato</a> stood out because she was really part of the art landscape in Brooklyn. Ever since I moved to New York, she had always lived in my neighborhood – first on the same street and then a few blocks away. We went to the same Laundromat and I saw her occasionally with her big dog. I was even offered her old studio, which was Kenny Scharf’s old studio. I really love her work. She was so ahead of the trends, working somewhere between figuration and abstraction, doing these cartoon characters that were almost post-Pop. She passed away two years ago, the same year this painting [Hello (2019), on view in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1248/Petzel" target="_blank">Petzel</a>'s Viewing Room] was made.

‘I discovered&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6711/Sue-Williams" target="_blank">Sue Williams</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/20867/Bruno-Gironcoli" target="_blank">Bruno Gironcoli</a> in “The Third Mind”, an exhibition organized by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8519/Ugo-Rondinone" target="_blank">Ugo Rondinone</a> at Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2007. Williams showed tiny drawings of scattered body parts, and I think her newer pieces [including Quantum Entanglement (2021), on view in 303 Gallery's Viewing Room] tie back to that older body of work. There are so many details with historical and cultural references mixed in with the personal. They’re very acerbic in spirit and a little bit grotesque. They’re like mind maps. It’s nice to zoom in or move closer and see where the connections bring you. Discovering her work was very important for my artistic growth.

‘With Gironcoli, his work is so beautiful and weird. I think it captures the collective imagination. At Palais de Tokyo, you didn’t know if the figures in his works were from the future or the past, and they fused machine with man, which is still relevant. How are we going to fuse with technologies? With this work [Xinox (1968–81), presented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1180/Galerie-Krinzinger" target="_blank">Galerie Krinzinger</a>], it also isn’t clear what the machine was or is supposed to do – it reminds me of something you’d find in the Musée des Arts et Métiers [an industrial design museum in Paris founded in the 18th century for the preservation of scientific instruments and inventions]. I like that his work is so precise and detailed but at the same time so enigmatic. They’re like archaeological pieces and we don’t know how to operate the things, but they also speak to this idea of genesis and the evolution of the human form.’

'OVR: Pioneers' will run March 24–27, 2021. Find out more <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/ovr">here</a>.Julie Curtiss is represented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1063/Anton-Kern-Gallery" target="_blank">Anton Kern Gallery</a>, New York City, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1316/White-Cube" target="_blank">White Cube</a>, London.Emily McDermott is a writer and editor living in Berlin.Top&nbsp;image: Julie Curtiss in her studio.

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Artists on Artists: Julie Curtiss

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