The Whisper Bar at Basel Social Club. All photos by author.
BY THE TIME I arrived in Basel on the morning of the Tuesday, I was already late, just as I was late to file this report. As I prepared to disembark from the overnight FlixBus from Amsterdam, I watched with amusement as collector Alain Servais live-tweeted the “shocked” reactions of Liste gallerists as a conspicuous gang of Douane officers unceremoniously (if performatively) descended upon their booths. The theatrics were so distracting, I didn’t even notice I dropped my passport, which would add some additional schedule-wrangling to an already packed few days. Between the main fair, its little-sister satellites of Liste and June, and the hotly anticipated second edition of Basel Social Club, everything had opened, and all relevant persons were present. Exchanging compliments, complaints-as-pleasantries, and false promises of “getting drinks,” the usual throng of art world professionals (now unmasked!) engaged in their beloved routine of feigning surprise that they should all be gathered in the middling border city at the same time, even if all for the same reason.
The atmosphere of a “homecoming” was palpable, if indirectly discussed. This year’s fair marked a relatively full return of the season. “It’s so busy,” was the general consensus, a testament to the (overdue) relaxation of pandemic-related travel restrictions which had in the previous few years prevented entry to entire demographics (most crucially, those from East Asia). Yet others lamented that it was “too slow,” and not paradoxically, given that Covid-19 seemed to peter out just in time for a recession, indeed like clockwork.
“Look at my working-class tan!” a gallerist boasted proudly, lifting his sleeve to reveal the stark paleness of his shoulder in contrast to his deeply golden bicep. Everyone seemed to agree on one point: The waves of heat were unsubtle and acute, if not oppressive, and it was no better outside than in the air-conditioning-less indoors, and yet, I recall no specific uses of the terms “global warming” nor “climate crisis” outside of the context of the odd work or two. Those who did not cool off in the mosquito-infested Rhine (I personally did not indulge, though this put me in the majority, as Art Basel had gone so far as to distribute branded swimming bags to all the participating dealers) watered themselves with chilled bottles of Sprudelwasser and glasses of crémant in the panopticon-like courtyard at the center of the main fair, where I too, together with artist Deborah Joyce Holman (on whose Artist Card I gained entry as a +1), fueled on the classic veal sausage, mustard, and bread roll combo, taking turns between consulting our map and using it as a fan. In the brief spin we managed before dinner, we fawned over Diamond Stingily’s moving-image and sculptural installation at Unlimited, Sonia Delaunay’s color-field paintings at Galerie Zlotowski, Senga Nengudi’s recreated liquid-filled sculptures at Thomas Erben, and Vaginal Davis’s framed drawings behind sheer curtains at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi.
Swimmers at the Rhine.
That evening, my dinner plans were cut short as I raced to collect my passport from the bus station. I had planned on capping off the evening at the Basel Social Club, which in its second year had moved from a 1930s villa complete with a pool and garden, just a little outside of town, to the Brutalist former facilities of the Thomy mayonnaise factory, something of a gift from a developer the organizers had befriended the year prior. By 11 p.m., however, the massive new venue was already at capacity, too full to allow even press to enter. In lieu of moping home, I was dragged (not unreluctantly) to ROUINE, a cozy bar with a dance floor, arm-in-arm with curators Mohamed Almusibli and Cory John Scozzari, and artist Shahryar Nashat. There, we drank vodka sodas, I drunkenly congratulated the incoming Forde codirectors Asma Barchiche and Mina Squalli-Houssaini, and I had my annual catch-up with my Basel-native ex-boyfriend before the night quickly slid into morning.
Co-organized by a quartet of art-world professionals—Robbie Fitzpatrick, Dominik Müller, Yael Salomonowitz, and Hannah Weinberger—Basel Social Club, now in its second year, was touted as a “social space for art” and is strictly not a fair, despite closely encroaching on the territory of the main events at Messeplatz (unlike last year, it’s now just minutes away by tram). Inside the factory’s cavernous silos, hundreds of label-less artworks covered all available surfaces, between which hangout zones such as the self-explanatory champagne-serving “Whisper Bar” are dispersed like favors. A new intervention by Margaret Honda and Galerie Molitor of multicolored translucent window foils cast mottled jewel tones onto long, wedding-reception-like dining tables, which were tended to by a local culinary collective. In the central courtyard, beneath a spotlit disused mayo-vat, a taco truck slung veggie and meat options at 6CHF a piece. (I had two mit fleisch—they were good, spicy, if a bit soggy.) Back inside, somewhat unintelligible performances by PRICE and Mykki Blanco served as the pregame to the main mid-week party at Kaschemme, organized as per tradition by House of Mixed Emotions, where Juliana Huxtable and Pe Ferreira spun the dense throng of a crowd into a sweaty, smelly, suited heap, and outside, scene darlings Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi and Shamiran Istifan looked beautiful and smoked. I greeted artist and party co-organizer Jan Vorisek, congratulating him on the success of the night, before riding home in a price-gouged cab.
In pursuit of a moment’s reprieve, I made the annual pilgrimage-by-tram to Fondation Beyeler with its beautiful gardens, which this year hosted concurrent and equally depressing solo exhibitions of Doris Salcedo installations and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Modena paintings. (I was struck by the majority of visitors’ misplaced excitement and libidinal consumption of the shows which contemplated the legacies of drowned refugees, modes of exploitation, and racialism in general.) At Schaulager, another traditional off-site fair-week venue, their twentieth-anniversary exhibition, “Out of the Box,” paradoxically framed highlights from the collection’s time-based media holdings in their own little projection boxes. Folks were raving about Janet Cardiff at the Museum Tinguely (“a must-see,” Istituto Svizzero director Joëlle Comé insisted), but I opted instead to visit Kunsthalle Basel, where P. Staff had an enigmatic (and calming) presentation of immersive installations and moving images, and Tiona Nekkia McClodden would performatively activate her exhibition of wall-mounted sculptures and leather belts stamped with lines of prose she read aloud. But I was almost late again: It was the day of the Frauenstreik, as always falls during fair week, and a dense crowd of purple-clad feminists congested the route from Messeplatz via Clarastrasse all the way up the Kunsthalle, grinding the city to a halt, and fair enough—Swiss women’s voting rights were not unilateral until 1990, so I couldn’t complain much. When it was all over, I went to the mountains.
— Olamiju Fajemisin
PRICE performing at Basel Social Club.
Basquiat at Fondation Beyeler.
Gallerist Isabella Bortolozzi with work by Vaginal Davis at Art Basel.
Curators Mohamed Almusibli and Cory John Scozzari.
Artist Shahryar Nashat and curator Mohamed Almusibli at Kaschemme.
Matching artists Miles Greenberg and Chloe Wise at Schällenursli.
Gallerist Bonny Poon with artist Deshaun Price at Liste.
The author and her recovered passport.