Spine, Chapter 20

R.H. Quaytman from her solo exhibition Spine, Chapter 20 at Kunsthalle Basel, 2011:

Rosenkranz vs Polke

Pamela Rosenkranz at Kunsthalle Basel, 2011:

Sigmar Polke at Pinakothek der Moderne, München 2011:

What I learned I No Longer Know; The Little I Still Know, I Guessed

Less than a week before Christmas, here's a good piece to meditate on while the whole world is supersaturated with commercialism.  Thai artist Pratchaya Phinthong's installation What I learned I No Longer Know; The Little I Still Know, I Guessed is made up of over-inflated (now withdrawn from circulation) Zimbabwean dollars.

Phinthong at Kunsthalle Basel, 2011:

Quaytman's book spine

Just arrived at Duesseldorf today.  But let me just finish off my Basel chapter.

Although my days in Basel have mostly been filled with sights of architecture, I did manage to see some impressive art there.  Francis Alÿs' Fabiola at Schaulager's offsite location Haus zum Kirschgarten, Henrik Olesen's solo at Museum für Gegenwartskunst and R.H. Quaytman's Spine, Chapter 20 at Kunsthalle Basel were all very powerful shows.  I like Quaytman's show the most.

Quaytman's exhibition is a reinterpreted retrospective of her paintings since 2001. With her paintings hung in long lines, viewers read the coherently displayed paintings like words on a page of a book.  I love the way she manipulated and reinvented images in an abstract way.  The modified architectural space intensified the effect of the visual display.  It's a pity that I did not have enough time to meditate on the depth of her thoughts.

Quaytman at Kunsthalle Basel, 2011: