What does it mean to present performance art at a fair? How are performative practices valued economically and artistically? These are some of the questions visitors to Art Basel’s 2022 Swiss edition will be given a chance to ponder. Once almost exclusively shown in an institutional context, performance art has gradually entered the commercial art world. Gallerists have followed their artists’ leads, while collectors and museums’ acquisition committees are increasingly keen to commit.
This year’s fair in Basel will showcase a rich selection of performances. During the inaugural Unlimited Night – held on June 16 – American artist Ari Benjamin Meyers and Amsterdam-based Nora Turato will both present their work in the sector dedicated to monumental artworks. Barcelona- based Daniela Ortiz will present a puppet show in the Statements sector throughout the duration of the fair and on Saturday, Parcours Night returns with an extensive performance program.
Art Basel’s commitment to performance is nothing new. In 2014, it staged the landmark exhibition ‘14 Rooms’ – an extravaganza gathering 14 new and historical performance pieces – curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist. This year’s offering underscores a growing desire for art that fosters collective experiences – an important element of the art-fair ecosystem, especially after these last years of isolation and online living. More importantly, the fair reframes the medium of performance as one that is no longer so disconnected from the art market.
Rose Lejeune, founder and director of the London-based Performance Exchange, recognized early on the growing desire of collectors to engage with living practices. This encouraged her to create a platform for commercial galleries to stage performances over a three-day weekend; the second edition will open on July 8th. ‘One of the exciting things about collecting performance is that each acquisition will be different,’ she explains. ‘There are clear benefits to owning performance: it takes up a lot less storage space and limits shipping costs!’ Acquisitions can take the form of scripts, notations, scores, props, or musical tracks, but can also consist of contractual agreements. ‘It takes thinking through the integrity of a particular work to create a bespoke contract that includes both a material and a responsibility-based understanding of what the work is,’ says Lejeune.
‘In our materialistic society, collecting performances will never be mainstream,’ say Marseille-based Josée and Marc Gensollen, whose extensive collection includes performances by Tino Sehgal, Douglas Gordon, Roman Ondak, Pierre Joseph, and Judith Deschamps. ‘Depending on the artists, we acquire the intellectual right to activate the work either verbally or physically, [and occasionally] the moral duty to exhibit it. And sometimes, we buy the duty to not talk about it,’ they explain. ‘The process involves renouncing the idea of possession, and to be ready to share the work,’ they continue, ‘even if it’s not possible when the work is only meant to take place once.’
This implied shared authorship is also fundamental for many artists. ‘Being a composer, the idea of interpretation is very important to me,’ says Meyers. At Unlimited Night, he will present K Club, a pop-up secret club whose mercurial bouncer will grant access to a single person at a time. Meyers and Canadian musician, Deadbeat, have composed a techno track that gets remixed by a DJ for each new visitor, creating a customized experience. ‘K Club is for sale. I created a special neon piece and composed music specifically for the club,’ explains Meyers. ‘To me, the score is very important. That is where my authorship lies.’ ‘But the actual performance of the work can take on totally different forms,’ he adds. ‘Once you own these elements, you can set up your own K Club.’
The work fosters an unusually intimate relationship between club-goer and DJ: ‘It is the gaze of the other that really makes you feel alone. You are being witnessed in your solitude,’ says Meyers. The element of exclusivity and ‘Kafkaesque selectivity’ for those allowed inside also generate stories through gossip and hearsay, causing a ripple effect beyond the physical space of the club. Here, the myth becomes the work.
Turato also plays with notions of malleability and playfulness, although in her practice they characterize the ready-made language she obsessively sources and transforms. For Unlimited Night, she will stage a continuation of a script she performed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York earlier this year in a hidden space, only revealed to visitors that very evening. Her practice can be seen as a product of diligent rehearsal, that simultaneously reveals how theatricality, interpretation, and choice can erupt via repetition. ‘I’m looking at essentially embodying the script to such a degree that through ongoing rehearsal and changes, it continually transforms,’ she says.
After a two-year hiatus, Parcours Night will return on the Saturday night, offering artists the possibility to extend or elaborate on their Parcours sector contribution with a performance, activation, reading, or musical piece. ‘Parcours Night should also be a platform for artists who might not work with a gallery representing them at Art Basel,’ adds Parcours curator Samuel Leuenberger. ‘It is meant to be an evening giving a wider range of artistic voices a broad audience. There is a big chance a passerby, or someone in town for their Saturday shopping, bumps into one of our performances,’ Leuenberger says. ‘That adds quite a powerful dimension.’
Works presented include readings from texts by Brazilian modernist writer Patrícia Galvão inside Oscar Murillo’s installation Social Cataracts, a durational performance lecture by US-based artists Puppies Puppies, and Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic’s group performance Evocations. ‘This year we will feel more than in many years prior,’ Leuenberger continues. ‘We are pushing right down onto raw nerves – not a surprise after the last two years of pandemic disaster.’
Corrado Gugliotta, whose gallery, Laveronica arte contemporanea, presents a puppet theater by Ortiz as part of the Statements sector, agrees on the fair’s increasingly open premises: ‘Fairs are not only a place where art is sold, but have become places where different areas meet,’ he explains. ‘Specifically for an artwork like that of Daniela Ortiz, a fair is simply the opportunity to reach a wider audience.’ Accompanied by a series of posters, the installation – for which the artist wrote the script, carved wooden puppets, made stage sets, and sewed, knitted, and embroidered costumes – will be activated twice daily.
Through these collective efforts, the fair has become an increasingly dynamic platform for performance art that stimulates discourse around its economies. ‘Performance as a genre needs its place to be seen and heard,’ says Leuenberger. ‘It’s all about the time and the attention span we are offered at any given time.’ ‘It’s so important performance can find a home beyond the theater and concert hall,’ adds Meyers. ‘It needs a home, and economic space, for survival. I think it’s great Art Basel is showing so much performance exactly for that reason.’
Judith Vrancken is a freelance writer, critic, and occasional curator based in Amsterdam.
Ari Benjamin Meyers is represented by Esther Schipper, Berlin; Daniela Ortiz by Laveronica arte contemporanea, Modica, Italy; and Nora Turato by Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich.
Unlimited Night takes place on Thursday, June 16, 7–10pm, and Parcours Night on Saturday, June 18, 4–11pm.
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Captions for full-bleed images: 1. Esther Kläs, L+, 2020, presented by Xavier Hufkens in the frame of Art Basel in Basel's 2021 Parcours sector. 2. Ari Benjamin Meyers, K Club (detail) , 2019. Exhibition view: Ari Benjamin Meyers, K Club, Blitz Club, organized by Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin. Photo © Simone Gänsheimer. 3. Oscar Murillo, Parque Industrial, Instituto de Visión, Bogotá, 2018. Photo by Sandra Vargas. Courtesy of the artist and Instituto de Visión, Bogota.