Imagine a place where you can frolic and play, where the art invites you to interact with it. No longer are the words “hands off” always applicable, and in some cases, feet are acceptable as well. The act of experiencing art through both touch and sight creates a welcome escape from the crowded halls of Art Basel.
“Metaforms”, this yearʼs Public sector of Art Basel, presents outdoor and site-specific installations in the luxurious open arena of Collins Park. Curated by Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator of Public Art Fund, New York, the Public sector is produced in collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art.
Blaume observes, “I was struck by how many artists have taken something familiar and built on its original significance through conceptual and formal transformations. While we may still recognize the structure or object, in the hands of the artist it becomes something else. That new thing stands apart from its source, drawing meaning form it while adding layers of significance or surprising new aspects of experience. With these sculptures the artists reveal themselves and the world in unexpected way, opening doors to engagement on different levels and for disparate audiences.”
Indeed, Collins Park was peppered with school groups of all ages, touring the grounds with great aplomb. “Untitled”, 2012-2015, by Jacob Kassay was an invitation to explore and to engage. A set of eight bronze modules in an inverted seating arrangement, inspired people to lower themselves into the earth. These depressions created a void that people wanted to fill, curiosity overcoming them to discover what could be felt in the absence of things.
Photo by Miss Rosen © Jacob Kassay
Further along in the park, was “Ernest and Ruth”, 2015, by Hank Willis Thomas. Utilizing the familiar shape of a cartoon speech bubble to form a bench upon which people are invited to sit. Thomas, whose work delves into the nature of truth and the importance of looking at things from different perspectives, has created an opportunity for the viewer to become an integral part of the whole. By engaging with the installation, the audience becomes physical manifestations of truth, as their very existence becomes the articulation of proof.
Photo by Hank Willis Thomas, Ernest and Ruth, Courtesy of Jack Shainman
Sam Falls also provides a spot for meditation and respite with “Untitled (Healing pavilion: calm and balance, peaceful sleep, soothes frayed nerves, endocrine system healing, mental organization, stress relief, patience, helps kidney function and fatigue, writers block and truthfulness, overcoming fear, and unconditional love, respectively to the stones below)”, 2015. The sculpture consists of two seats facing each other, encouraging people to sit with each other or to enjoy a moment alone. The seats and ibeams composing the sculpture are filled with terrazzo in which the traditional materials of shells and glass are replaced with healing gemstones including aventurine, amethyst, jasper, rose quartz, and lapis lazuli, among others.
Photo by Miss Rosen © Timm Ulrichs
Not all the works in “Metaforms” are can be touched; some exist simply as objects of contemplation. Sylvie Fleuryʼs “Eternity Now”, 2015, a bold and brilliant work of neon signage running across the front of the Bass Museum of Art. Fleury often creates neon signs that re-contextualize status symbols, luxury goods, and brand slogans to produce a commentary on consumer society and cultural desire. “Eternity Now” is a brilliant metaphor for the power of art to live in the present forevermore.
Photo by Miss Rosen © Tomas Saraceno (sculpture) Sylvie Fleury (sign)
But it might just be Tony Tassetʼs “Deer”, 2015 that stood head and shoulders above the crowd, figuratively and literally at 12 feet high. Fashioned of painted, steel-reinforced fiberglass on an enlarged scale, “Deer” is a monument most original. Both endearing and absurd, Tassetʼs work references our current environment concerns, in which nature and humans are completely out of balance.
Photo by Miss Rosen, Deer © Tony Tasset
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
