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<\/p>\nLouise Bourgeois and Huma Bhabha at Xavier Hufkens<\/h2>\n\nAt Xavier Hufkens, two impressive sculptures immediately showed off their artists\u2019 world-making power: Louise Bourgeois<\/a>\u2019s small yet mighty\u00a0Pregnant Woman<\/em>\u00a0(2003) and Huma Bhabha\u2019s rough-hewn\u00a0Poet<\/em>\u00a0(2021). Pregnant Woman, standing just a few centimeters tall is rendered in hand sewn fabric with arms pulled back into a position of detained prisoner. The figure\u2019s bald head wears an open-mouthed face reminiscent of Edvard Munch\u2019s\u00a0The Scream<\/em>. Bhabha\u2019s unapologetically ghastly abstraction in statuary bronze reflects not a nightmare to come, but the syncopated horror of own contemporary moment. The rough, worked over surface, achieved through technical precision in the patina process, shows the grounded presence of a spirit which cannot be consumed in a sculpture that will not let us turn away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Hammons_SLG_2021_Art-Basel_C2_Basel_Installation-Image.jpg?w=800\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nPhoto<\/span>\u00a0:\u00a0<\/span>Darla Migan for ARTnews<\/span><\/div>\nDavid Hammons at Simon Lee<\/h2>\n\nA three-dimensional hanging painting by David Hammons immediately drew visitors to Simon Lee\u2019s booth at the world\u2019s biggest fair. Hammons\u2019s work,\u00a0Untitled<\/em>\u00a0(2009), a mixed-media work on canvas affects a precarious installation, with nearly three quarters dangling off the booth\u2019s wall. Together with work from a more recent series, titled \u201cOrange is the New Black<\/a>\u201d (including the plinth-elevated\u00a0Untitled<\/em>, 2017), Hammons moves seamlessly between sculpture\/painting and rococo readymade\/found object to interrogate the violent taxonomies of institutions. Simon Lee has created a well-curated affair, bringing together work intended to surprise both the formalist devotee and please the avant-garde fetishist. Sonia Boyce\u2019s\u00a0Tongues<\/em>\u00a0(1997) is a wall-sized photograph in black and white depicting a closeup of four open mouths provokes bodily participation to raise questions of self-ownership. (Boyce will represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2022.) Meanwhile, Georg Karl Pfahler presents a bold geometric study in color with its luscious thick blue curve. Both artists make their debut at Basel with the gallery.<\/p>\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Ward.jpg?w=800\")
<\/p>\nPhoto<\/span>\u00a0:\u00a0<\/span>Darla Migan for ARTnews<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nNari Ward in Unlimited, presented by Lehmann Maupin and Galleria Continua<\/h2>\n\nNari Ward\u2019s abstract work\u00a0A Brief History of Known<\/em>\u00a0(2021) is a rare and a truly monumental work in the fair\u2019s Unlimited section, which is curated this year by Giovanni Carmine.\u00a0A Brief History of Known<\/em>\u00a0busts past its own visual delight (of which it also gives in abundance) to situate itself from within its own historical power. Ward\u2019s ongoing use of construction nails\u2014now clustered in copper bursts of oblong diamond shapes\u2014pulse like oracle orbs seeming to float on the surface of a tumultuous sea of acrid luminescence in swirling blacks and blues. The artist first saw this symbol at the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia, punctured into the church\u2019s floorboards to create breathing holes for escaped slaves.<\/p>\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Orupabo.jpg?w=800\")
<\/p>\nPhoto<\/span>\u00a0:\u00a0<\/span>Darla Migan for ARTnews<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nStevenson, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Amsterdam<\/h2>\n\nPresenting a talented group of millennial artists\u2014working in portrait photography, color field painting, and installation\u2014hailing from or based in Johannesburg, Stevenson gallery\u2019s intergenerational program is anchored by mid-20th century modernist Ben Enwonwu\u2019s\u00a0Dancing Girls Yoruba<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1950), whose work is shown alongside contemporary conceptual internet-and-lens based collagists like Frida Orupabo, whose art recalibrates art historical references and more familiar antecedents. Also, not to be missed in the booth is artist Meleko Mokgosi\u2019s multimedia work\u00a0Objects of Desire, Addendum 1<\/em>\u00a0(2019), depicting Winnie Mandela in the poise of Vermeer\u2019s\u00a0Girl with a Pearl Earring<\/em>, toting an AK-47. This image is accompanied by painted text that presents a detailed correction on the misreading of tribal symbology\u2014such as the Chamba figure\u2014by Western art historical scholarship. And an atmospheric collage (shown above) in black and white of a woman with red socks pointing a pistol at a snake by Frida Orupabo, who also has work currently on view at Bienal de S\u00e3o Paulo, is breath-taking.<\/p>\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/SELF-2021031-Candy.jpg?w=600\")
<\/p>\nPhoto<\/span>\u00a0:\u00a0<\/span>Courtesy the artist and Pilar Corrias, London<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nTschabalala Self at Pilar Corrias<\/h2>\n\nTschabalala Self is an artist dedicated to pushing her own painterly virtuosity forward, while deftly navigating the psychic experience of transposing and reordering the power between figure and gaze. In a wall-sized work, titled\u00a0Candy<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(2021), that feels larger in scale than previous works by the artist, Self constructs a complex twist on the reclining nude by using a calculated play in shadow and shape, rendered through pink, red, and black geometric gymnastics. The strength of the central character, shown twisting their torso to look out at the viewer, is bolstered by the fact that the character blocks the viewer from seeing another figure behind them, who we can only detect through a painted shadow. Of her current practice that looks at \u201cthe iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture,\u201d Self writes in an artist\u2019s statement, \u201cI aspire to hold space and create a cultural vacuum in which these bodies can exist for their own pleasure and self-realization. Free from other\u2019s assertions and the othering gaze. I hope to correct misconceptions propagated within and projected upon the Black body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Hosnedlova.jpg?w=732\")
<\/p>\nPhoto<\/span>\u00a0:\u00a0<\/span>Darla Migan for ARTnews<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nKl\u00e1ra Hosnedlov\u00e1 at Kraupa-Tuskany-Zeidler<\/h2>\n\nKl\u00e1ra Hosnedlov\u00e1 usually works in large-format installation (see her 2020 installation at Berlin\u2019s Berghain nightclub) and has her multifaceted works on view both at Kraupa-Tuskany-Zeidler<\/a>\u2019s booth and in the fair\u2019s citywide Parcours section at a location just a few minutes\u2019 walk from the Messeplatz. Currently pursuing her doctorate, the Berlin-based Hosnedlov\u00e1\u2019s\u00a0Nest<\/em>\u00a0creates environments of disorienting wreckage that anticipates our need for false nostalgia through blown-up digital images of close exchanges between photographed figures who are then rendered in tiny hand-embroidered stiches that aims show our connectedness in spite of everything. The gallery also brought stellar works by Guan Xiao (in Parcours), Brook Hsu, Ambera Wellmann, and Anna Uddenburg.<\/p>\n
At Xavier Hufkens, two impressive sculptures immediately showed off their artists\u2019 world-making power: Louise Bourgeois<\/a>\u2019s small yet mighty\u00a0Pregnant Woman<\/em>\u00a0(2003) and Huma Bhabha\u2019s rough-hewn\u00a0Poet<\/em>\u00a0(2021). Pregnant Woman, standing just a few centimeters tall is rendered in hand sewn fabric with arms pulled back into a position of detained prisoner. The figure\u2019s bald head wears an open-mouthed face reminiscent of Edvard Munch\u2019s\u00a0The Scream<\/em>. Bhabha\u2019s unapologetically ghastly abstraction in statuary bronze reflects not a nightmare to come, but the syncopated horror of own contemporary moment. The rough, worked over surface, achieved through technical precision in the patina process, shows the grounded presence of a spirit which cannot be consumed in a sculpture that will not let us turn away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A three-dimensional hanging painting by David Hammons immediately drew visitors to Simon Lee\u2019s booth at the world\u2019s biggest fair. Hammons\u2019s work,\u00a0Untitled<\/em>\u00a0(2009), a mixed-media work on canvas affects a precarious installation, with nearly three quarters dangling off the booth\u2019s wall. Together with work from a more recent series, titled \u201cOrange is the New Black<\/a>\u201d (including the plinth-elevated\u00a0Untitled<\/em>, 2017), Hammons moves seamlessly between sculpture\/painting and rococo readymade\/found object to interrogate the violent taxonomies of institutions. Simon Lee has created a well-curated affair, bringing together work intended to surprise both the formalist devotee and please the avant-garde fetishist. Sonia Boyce\u2019s\u00a0Tongues<\/em>\u00a0(1997) is a wall-sized photograph in black and white depicting a closeup of four open mouths provokes bodily participation to raise questions of self-ownership. (Boyce will represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2022.) Meanwhile, Georg Karl Pfahler presents a bold geometric study in color with its luscious thick blue curve. Both artists make their debut at Basel with the gallery.<\/p>\n Nari Ward\u2019s abstract work\u00a0A Brief History of Known<\/em>\u00a0(2021) is a rare and a truly monumental work in the fair\u2019s Unlimited section, which is curated this year by Giovanni Carmine.\u00a0A Brief History of Known<\/em>\u00a0busts past its own visual delight (of which it also gives in abundance) to situate itself from within its own historical power. Ward\u2019s ongoing use of construction nails\u2014now clustered in copper bursts of oblong diamond shapes\u2014pulse like oracle orbs seeming to float on the surface of a tumultuous sea of acrid luminescence in swirling blacks and blues. The artist first saw this symbol at the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia, punctured into the church\u2019s floorboards to create breathing holes for escaped slaves.<\/p>\n Presenting a talented group of millennial artists\u2014working in portrait photography, color field painting, and installation\u2014hailing from or based in Johannesburg, Stevenson gallery\u2019s intergenerational program is anchored by mid-20th century modernist Ben Enwonwu\u2019s\u00a0Dancing Girls Yoruba<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1950), whose work is shown alongside contemporary conceptual internet-and-lens based collagists like Frida Orupabo, whose art recalibrates art historical references and more familiar antecedents. Also, not to be missed in the booth is artist Meleko Mokgosi\u2019s multimedia work\u00a0Objects of Desire, Addendum 1<\/em>\u00a0(2019), depicting Winnie Mandela in the poise of Vermeer\u2019s\u00a0Girl with a Pearl Earring<\/em>, toting an AK-47. This image is accompanied by painted text that presents a detailed correction on the misreading of tribal symbology\u2014such as the Chamba figure\u2014by Western art historical scholarship. And an atmospheric collage (shown above) in black and white of a woman with red socks pointing a pistol at a snake by Frida Orupabo, who also has work currently on view at Bienal de S\u00e3o Paulo, is breath-taking.<\/p>\n Tschabalala Self is an artist dedicated to pushing her own painterly virtuosity forward, while deftly navigating the psychic experience of transposing and reordering the power between figure and gaze. In a wall-sized work, titled\u00a0Candy<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(2021), that feels larger in scale than previous works by the artist, Self constructs a complex twist on the reclining nude by using a calculated play in shadow and shape, rendered through pink, red, and black geometric gymnastics. The strength of the central character, shown twisting their torso to look out at the viewer, is bolstered by the fact that the character blocks the viewer from seeing another figure behind them, who we can only detect through a painted shadow. Of her current practice that looks at \u201cthe iconographic significance of the Black female body in contemporary culture,\u201d Self writes in an artist\u2019s statement, \u201cI aspire to hold space and create a cultural vacuum in which these bodies can exist for their own pleasure and self-realization. Free from other\u2019s assertions and the othering gaze. I hope to correct misconceptions propagated within and projected upon the Black body.\u201d<\/p>\n Kl\u00e1ra Hosnedlov\u00e1 usually works in large-format installation (see her 2020 installation at Berlin\u2019s Berghain nightclub) and has her multifaceted works on view both at Kraupa-Tuskany-Zeidler<\/a>\u2019s booth and in the fair\u2019s citywide Parcours section at a location just a few minutes\u2019 walk from the Messeplatz. Currently pursuing her doctorate, the Berlin-based Hosnedlov\u00e1\u2019s\u00a0Nest<\/em>\u00a0creates environments of disorienting wreckage that anticipates our need for false nostalgia through blown-up digital images of close exchanges between photographed figures who are then rendered in tiny hand-embroidered stiches that aims show our connectedness in spite of everything. The gallery also brought stellar works by Guan Xiao (in Parcours), Brook Hsu, Ambera Wellmann, and Anna Uddenburg.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nDavid Hammons at Simon Lee<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nNari Ward in Unlimited, presented by Lehmann Maupin and Galleria Continua<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nStevenson, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Amsterdam<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nTschabalala Self at Pilar Corrias<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nKl\u00e1ra Hosnedlov\u00e1 at Kraupa-Tuskany-Zeidler<\/h2>\n
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