A brisk walk from central Basel is Birsfelden; nestled between the Birs and Rhine rivers, the sleepy Swiss municipality is best known for its harbour and forest walks. But since 2009, locals have been welcoming not only nature lovers, but art enthusiasts too. From post-internet to performance art, and from mail art to installations in garages, the non-profit space Salts is giving Art Basel’s cutting-edge galleries a run for their money.
“When you first hear about Salts being in Birsfelden, it seems very far away. But we are five minutes from the fair by car and ten minutes by foot from the Kunstmuseum Basel or the Tinguely Museum,” says Samuel Leuenberger, the director of Salts and the curator of Art Basel’s Parcours sector this year.
The region around Basel, with its dense museum and institutional landscape, provides “good, fertile soil” for a non-profit space, Leuenberger says. “It’s a wonderfully unique place, since it’s tucked away in the suburbs, on a river; it’s a residential area but with an industrial character.”
Salts presents a blend of Swiss artists and emerging international talent showing in Switzerland for the first time. Installations fill the indoor gallery spaces but also gardens and converted garages. Leuenberger, who lives at Salts, is interested in showing works fresh from the studio—what artists are “currently chewing on”, he says.
This month, the UK artist Owen Piper and the French artist Lili Reynaud-Dewar, who met while studying at the Glasgow School of Art, are collaborating for the show How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. The exhibition, which is the artists’ first institutional collaboration in Switzerland, is a humorous take on what it means to be an artist today.
Young curators get a platform, too. For My History of Flow, Leuenberger has invited the Frankfurt-based Swiss curator Anna Goetz to stage a show of works by the Städel student Lena Henke. Steeped in the history of gardening and landscape design, Henke has used water to create a sculptural environment on both the interior and exterior of Salts.
The third exhibition, Works Off Paper, in Salts’s Printed Room, looks at the cultural changes taking place in the wake of today’s growing shift from print to digital. The group show includes works by Penny Goring, Lorraine O’Grady, Lady Pink, Arleen Schloss and Martine Syms, as well
as a performance by SADAF and a mix tape of poems.
Visitor figures have “exploded” in the past three years, Leuenberger says, with Salts drawing more than 1,000 people to its openings. “Quite amazing for a project space,” he says. High time to pepper your Basel itinerary with something new: Salts.
Curator tackles the big issues in this year’s Parcours
This year’s edition of Parcours—Art Basel’s programme of site-specific works—is centred around Münsterhügel, near the city’s cathedral. Samuel Leuenberger, the director of Salts and the curator of Parcours, explains why he has chosen the 19 works on show.
“For my first edition of Parcours, I am hoping to give the show a human, figurative character. The works ask for a lot of self-reflection in light of the disconcerting issues affecting our daily lives. For example, Alfredo Jaar’s poignant work The Gift addresses the European migration crisis, asking for clarity in a moment when most people just rush around to be entertained. Sam Durant’s The Labyrinth also addresses a broader social concern: the US prison system. He brings a form of expression to the growing problem of mass incarceration and what it means to be locked away. But, of course, there are many powerful voices in this year’s programme, such as Tracey Rose, Trisha Baga, Michael Dean and Daniel Gustav Cramer.”
• Salts, The Printed Room—Works off Paper; Owen Piper and Lili Reynaud-Dewar on How to Talk Dirty and Influence People; My History of Flow, until 27 August