Exhibition & Performance

13 Jun — 10 Jul 2016

Performative exhibition project developed with Rebekka Kiesewetter and Kaja Kusztra for Depot Basel. Assisted by Heidi Franke. Presented during Art Basel 2016.

What is contemporary?

How do people implement their self-imposed aspiration to be contemporary – to act within their time – how do they reflect their own occupation, their position and the now? What are the manifestations and the materializations of our time?

‘Superprojekt’ is a provisional stage at Depot Basel, exploring the question ‘What is contemporary?’ by different means: The written and the spoken word, the physical item, the body language, and the public’s reactions, condensed into a timeframe, mirroring the contributors’ personal and subjective views.

Attending the performances is essential for perceiving and understanding the works.The exhibition space is the stage and vice versa.

20-minute exhibition

Depot Basel determines that the duration of the exhibition will be 20 minutes. In an everyday life in which the maximum possible attention span is constantly shortened due to a steady flow of snap-shots and the work on various equally urgent projects at the same time, 20 minutes have become a fixed unit of time measurement.

In the performative exhibition following a script that has been created in collaboration with Kaja Kusztra, the perpetuity of objects overlays with the fleetingness of the actions that are inscribed into those very same objects. The quality of things as carriers of meaning and as significants of our time will be depicted. It is necessary to participate in the 20-minute exhibition to fully grasp the works and to understand what ‘contemporary’ can signify today.

From a curating point of view, this interval offers a focused frame in which the different aspects and levels of the works of Luke Archer (UK/CH), Leonardo Azzolini (IT/CH) , Ferréol Babin (FR), Dimitri Bähler (CH), Tymek Borowski (PL) Soft Baroque (UK), Santiago Guerrero Font (UK), Joanne Hakkert (NL), Leonard Kadid (FR/CH), Sebastian Marbacher (CH), Diana Pfammatter (CH) and Dan Solbach (CH) are made accessible to the visitors.