Pope.L is in the building New York’s Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery kicked off Art Basel’s Unlimited section last night with a new performance by Pope.L, the US artist who tackles issues of race and angst across a variety of media. When asked about the reactions he expected from the crowd, he said: “Thoughtfulness,” adding: “I suppose people throwing things might be okay. I can defend myself. I’m not a beast without a mission.” Pope.L debuted The Problem (2016) by throwing white plantains from the window of a white limousine on the Messeplatz before emerging, holding a white umbrella and wearing a white gorilla costume. He then dashed inside, swiftly followed by photographers and videographers. “I’ve committed to just chasing after him like an idiot at this point,” said someone who works at the gallery. “Finally, a good piece of performance art,” said a critic, mid-sprint, whom we’d seen earlier at a different performance. The gorilla stopped at other popular stands before arriving at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s stand, where he peeked behind some of his paintings. There, before a crowd of art-world heavyweights who’d clearly been told to be there for the climax, he found stacks of €100 bills. He gathered them up and sprinted back to the limo, squeezing himself, at the entrance, past the dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who showed no reaction to any of this whatsoever.
Cutting-edge fair Hopefully, the fragile of psyche will not be encouraged to do anything rash when they visit Tokyo’s Aoyama/Meguro gallery at the art fair Liste, where one of the interactive pieces in the solo show of works by Satoshi Hashimoto suggests that “you can cut yourself”—and provides a lethal-looking knife for the purpose. Visitors are also greeted by a provocatively noose-like rope that hangs in a doorway, its function left up to the imagination. Certainly many art-worlders might benefit from the roll of black duct tape that comes with an invitation to “cover your mouth with tape”, while there have already been many (including the artist) who have proved willing and eager to engage with the wooden block emblazoned with “push me down/stand me up”. If a cry for help is what you’re after, the resounding crash resulting from following the first command guarantees everyone’s undivided attention.
Super-sized Hans hits Manifesta The sight of a figure walking around Manifesta 11 in Zurich at the weekend wearing a gargantuan papier-mâché head of the mega-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic director of London’s Serpentine Galleries, forced visitors to do a double-take. And the impersonator sporting the top-heavy tête was none other than Christian Jankowski, the artist-cum-
curator of the roving European biennial. The piece he was wearing was made by the art collective aptly known as the Big Head Brigade. Passers-by seemed tickled by the head transplant, and when confronted with a photograph of his lookalike, Obrist exclaimed: “Oh, wow—OMG!”
How to deconstruct a pick-up truck One of the strongest works in Art Basel’s Parcours section, which opened last night in the area around the Münsterplatz, is Virginia Overton’s Untitled (Hi Lux) (2016). The artist has deconstructed a Toyota Hi Lux pick-up truck in the courtyard of the local verkehrsdepartement (traffic department) to emphasise the plinth-like nature of the truck’s bed. “They’re almost like kinetic sculptures when they’re driving around,” she says. In 2012, Overton filled the back of her own Toyota pick-up with mortared bricks for a work staged near New York’s High Line park. The artist chose the space for the Basel project partly because it is supposed to be visible from the former office of the art dealer and museum founder Ernst Beyeler, and she liked the idea of him looking down at it, were he still alive. Overton often works with ideas found in Minimalism, but at first glance, the work resembles a piece by the late US artist John Chamberlain. She first had to find a Toyota Hi Lux in Switzerland and then find a mechanic to chop it up. Over a day, she then stacked the parts inside the truck’s bed, with nothing to secure them, so they balance themselves. “Packing is a certain skill I have, having had a truck for so long,” Overton says.
The In crowd There are other personal resonances, but such is the strength of her conviction that the UK should remain in the European Union that Tracey Emin is more than happy if her new neon text The More Of You The More I Love You, on display in Unlimited, is also viewed as an expression of her political views. “If you told me you were having a party but that I wasn’t invited, why would I ever want to invite you to anything in the future?” she asked. Emin also expressed her disappointment that John Whittingdale, the UK minister for culture, media and sport, is an ardent Brexiteer, and the artist is threatening to whip up her friends in high places to take heed of the art community’s fears. “That is why no one is listening to all of us artists, who have been saying that the only way is to stay,” she says. “When I get back to England, I’m going to talk to David Cameron and Ed Vaizey [the minister for culture, communications and creative industries] about this.”